Skolkovo Foundation and HaxAsia accelerator (Singapore) signed a partnership agreement to start a joint acceleration program for hardware projects in Moscow and Singapore. The goal of the program is to develop the projects from prototypes to ready-for-market, to lead them to the stage of pilot or mass production and to bring them to the crowdfunding platforms IndieGoGo and Kickstarter.
The joint acceleration program of Skolkovo and HaxAsia will be held in two stages. At the first stage the experts will help the companies refine their prototypes, create industrial samples and prepare for the launch of crowdfunding campaigns. At the second stage of the program the projects will present their projects at the international crowdfunding platforms. HaxAsia team will help the companies start production in China, Malaysia and other countries.
HaxAsia is an accelerator and seed investor in hardware 2.0 startups that develop wearable devices, 3D-printing solutions, Internet of things and other technologies. HaxAsia model implies helping startups in refining their products for industrial production, launching the projects at crowdfunding platforms and further assistance in organizing contract production and fundraising with the goal of accelerated commercialization.
Gene Berger, Managing Partner, HaxAsia:
“Crowdfunding platforms are amazing invention that changed the way new products are created. However, most of the hardware teams launching crowdfunding campaigns often fail to communicate their product ideas well, they lack the distribution network and underestimate the manufacturing risks and costs. HaxAsia has already helped the first batch of companies to raise more than $1.2M on Indiegogo and deliver their products. Now, when we joined forces with Skolkovo, we will be able to localize the program in Moscow to help Russian and European startups to finalize their R&D and develop truly innovative hardware 2.0 products”.
Igor Bogachev, VP, Executive director of IT Cluster, Skolkovo Foundation:
“Skolkovo Foundation and HaxAsia have common interest in developing high-tech startups. Therefore HaxAsia is setting up its acceleration program on the basis of our Mobile Technologies Center. The accelerator will look at the potential of Skolkovo’s startups to match the investment mandate of HaxAsia. There are – (number?) startups in IT Cluster developing hardware 2.0 projects, including wearables, virtual reality devices, smart home gadgets and others. The projects that can potentially take part in the program include Panorics, 3DiVi, Svet, iMotion and many others. It is still early to name the participants of the accelerator program, but they will be known soon.”
HaxAsia can invest directly in the chosen projects from Skolkovo. According to the agreement with the Skolkovo Foundation, HaxAsia can invest in up to 15 resident projects with total volume of investment of $700,000.
About HaxAsia
HaxAsia Pte. Ltd., is a startup accelerator focused on Hardware 2.0 and Internet of Things. The program, sponsored and supported by Ruvento Ventures, Incuvest, BootstrapLabs, DI Group, SpinUp Partners and a few angels, invest in 10 startups 9 months working on amazing consumer hardware products such as smart gadgets, wearables, drones and other connected hardware via a 180 day accelerator program to be held in Singapore, Silicon Valley and China. The program is specifically designed to avoid many of the pitfalls hardware startups struggle with, including sleek prototype vetted by industrial design partners, cost and delay of production confirmed with preferred manufacturers in China and support with crowdfunding preparation, marketing and PR.
The program is flexible in a sense that there is no deadline for the application, the only requirement is that startups need to launch their crowdfunding campaign within 6 months from receiving the accelerator’s funding. The team can get up to SGD50K upfront from HaxAsia itself, and up to SGD1M from HaxAsia backers, upon successful crowdfunding campaign. In order to qualify for the program, the teams need to demonstrate a functional prototype.
About the Skolkovo Foundation
The Skolkovo Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in September 2010 by the Russian government with the objective of accelerating Russia’s transformation from a resource-intensive to an innovation-based economy. To achieve this objective, the Foundation is overseeing the creation of the Skolkovo Innovation Center, composed of more than 1,000 high-tech startups, Skolkovo Technopark, the Skolkovo Institute of Technology (Skoltech) - a new graduate research University established in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - and Skolkovo city, located near Moscow. Together, these entities establish a vibrant ecosystem of technology innovation and entrepreneurship. Fifty global corporations including Boeing, Cisco Systems, EADS, GE, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Siemens, Nokia, Samsung, and Panasonic have already recognized the opportunity Skolkovo presents by signing R&D partnership agreements with the Foundation. The cumulative revenue of Skolkovo’s startups through December 2014 reached $1 billion. They brought in more than $220 million in investment, creating 13,500 jobs and filing over 1,300 patent applications along the way. By 2020 over 2 million square meters of residential and office space will be built in Skolkovo with 35,000 people working daily in the Innovation Center. For more information: http://www.sk.ru/en
Press contacts
HaxAsia
Gene Berger
Tel.: +65-9892-1343
E-mail: gene@haxasia.com
Skolkovo:
Taisiya Yarmak
Tel.: +79166948826
E-mail: tyarmak@sk.ru