Two resident startups of the Skolkovo Foundation’s IT cluster were among the top 10 companies at Slush Singapore this week, as selected by a jury of investors.
Svetlana Yefimova presenting her company Oz Forensics at Slush Singapore. Photo: Oz Forensics.
Oz Forensics, which makes a system that prevents digital fraud by detecting fake photos and documents, and PlayKey, a service that allows gamers with old or slow PCs to play the latest games, were among the finalists at the event for tech entrepreneurs, and will now get the opportunity to present their products to leading venture investors at other Slush startup conferences in San Francisco, Tokyo, Helsinki and Shanghai.
Oz Forensics plans to enter the Asia-Pacific markets, its executive director Svetlana Yefimova told Sk.ru.
“Oz Forensics’ technology makes it possible to monitor incoming digital documents,” she said. “Our solution has already been tried and tested on 5 million documents and images, and has saved our clients more than $500,000,” she said.
PlayKey CEO and founder Egor Gurev in Singapore. Photo: PlayKey Facebook page.
“This victory will enable us to attract potential clients from the banking sector, and to upscale our business,” said Yefimova, who presented the company’s system at Slush Singapore.
Oz Forensics is one of 13 Skolkovo startups selected this week to take part in a reality TV show in which Russian tech startups compete for cash prizes.
Recognition at Slush Singapore was not the first success for Playkey and its computer game virtualization service either. Earlier this year, it raised $1.5 million in investment from Darz, a major German IT service provider and data centre owner. PlayKey also has plans to launch its own cryptocurrency.
“Six hundred companies battled it out for a place in the Slush Singapore final, and two Russian companies – both B2B and B2C – made it into the top 10 for the first time,” said Pavel Novikov, director of fintech and blockchain within Skolkovo’s IT cluster.
“We’re very pleased that international experts rated the solutions of Skolkovo startups so highly. Oz Forensics has carried off practically all of the awards in Russian fintech competitions – just this summer it won the SWIFT Innotribe Challenge international competition – but at the same time, it never forgets about sales, and already has contracts with a range of banks in Russia,” he said.
“We expect active expansion of the business onto the international market in 2018, and everything is in place for that to happen,” added Novikov.
He said PlayKey had created a unique technology for the gaming industry, and a service that was getting more popular with every year.
“In November this year, anyone will be able to take part in their ICO and become part of the project,” he added.