Where to find money for startups

In search of the best sites to attract capital and project presentation "F." addressed directly to venture capitalists, startups, event organizers and the Russian Venture Company. Despite the abundance of Eventov associated with venture capital funds and the submission of projects to court investors, often mentioned the same names. In this set of clearly identified separate areas - the traditional conferences, contests, projects and business plans, activities for start-ups and specialized investment session. About them and will talk. "The most popular formats such communication innovators and investors today - it's a business lunch, contests, elevator-pitches - all that requires the ability to clearly understand what an investor wants to hear and how to convince him that he was right," - said Eugene Kuznetsov, Director of Development and Communications of the Russian Venture Company. "Ctartap for weekend." The traditional scheme of such events is quite simple. Gathering on Friday, the participants propose ideas for the design, voting remains a dozen projects - and work them over the next two days the teams, and then present their results. The organizers are proud of the fact that at least one viable project goes to market on the basis of such "off." Such meetings are considered a tool of development of youth entrepreneurship - the participants not only students. Dmitry Repin, director of project start-up school "Skolkovo", regularly sees them serial entrepreneurs looking for new members to the project team or testing new ideas. Among those activities - Moscow StartUpWeekend, project Nachinai.com. St. Petersburg HackDays offer just a day or two to run their own start-up, way up from idea to prototype, incidentally getting the missing knowledge on educational activities. They can significantly shorten the path from idea to investment. "I came up with the idea, but after six months the company has earned" - so I would like to say about myself most of the participants in these meetings, but it turns out, of course, not all. Venues are happy to share success stories. So, poSEEDelki, where young entrepreneurs discuss their ideas with experts, acting on a current topic for business development, called the project a successful startup Mobiety. The idea of ​​a platform for mobile surveys can a couple of hours to figure out who, for example, will become the future president, was first presented at a spring meeting. Ceychas startup was among the residents of a business incubator and the HSE has launched an alpha version of the service. The project is "beginning" more clearly focused on the creation of start-ups in the end and more noticeable results. During the event, a team of Alexey Chernyak met with a partner fund business angels Addventure, and a month later they decided to start Cheap & Daily - a project on a daily basis offering a limited number of any one commodity at wholesale price. Some time later, Darberry, service group purchases a coupon code, sensational because it is among other services clones selected for purchase Groupon, offering similar services in dozens of cities around the world. Anna Chebotarev came to the "Start" with a TV project BlackSwan. Her project was invested RVC, and two months later, she launched her TV. Understanding the needs of start-ups has led her to create the loop-line programs "Business Inquisition," in which are presentations of projects, which the experts dismantled. Past Inquisition projects, such as TimePad, internet service for organizing events, say the experts have helped not only advice but also offered cooperation. Participant "Start", the project AdOffer, - a new format of online advertising where payment is only for the targeted user action, such as the purchase of goods, - the first investment immediately attracted to the event. Investors was the team of MBA students in the Skolkovo - Andrei Vasilevsky, Alexander Khomenko and Dmitry Yurchenko, also joined them Dmitriev-ry Eagles from Google. We are looking for investors. While special events for investors is not so much, but it is clear - there is a more rigorous project selection. "There are a number of projects are clearly oriented to the needs of investors. For example, "Tech Tour" held EuropeanTechTourAssociation, Russia's first phase of which Alexander Galitsky conducted in 2005 (among the companies that have attracted investment in its course, have been Parallels, Acronis, Yandex, ABBYY, SJ Labs - «F."). In 2009, took a new step - it did the team with Konstantin Fokin, Pavel Boglanova and me, - says Andrey Golovin, managing partner incubator.ru, founder of venture partner RER "Vector growth." - Sasha Galitsky actively assisted in the status of honorary chairman. This is a serious event - it is preceded by a thorough competitive selection. We collected the top 25 high-tech projects in Russia, the presentation took place in Kazan, Moscow and Tomsk. As a result, market attracted about 70-80 investors through investments in projects runs into tens of millions of dollars. This event is held every four years. Obviously, the analogues he can not be much - every time you collect the cream from the market. " Another attractive event for investors, according to experts, are the design session StartupIndex. The format is something like - closed session, a limited number of projects after the selection - it allows you to maintain good relationship and investment projects and save time participants. Although the projects are simpler, and less investment than in the "Tech Tour", but project managers and venture capitalists just appreciate their time, its pretty podrasteryav on traditional activities. Grandees. One of the largest stands to mark the International Forum on Nanotechnology "Nanotechnologies", St. Petersburg International Innovation Forum and venture fairs. Activities most extensive and investment opportunities, as well as opportunities for presentation at these events is not as extensive. "The old events like Venture Fair, Moscow Venture Forum and SVOD (Open Day in Silicon Valley -" F. ") slowly becoming obsolete, - says Oleg Manchulyantsev, the founder of a venture fund early investment SIPO, co-founder of" Begin. " - A new kind of activity events "Begin», Harvest, StartupIndex - covering hardly 5% of the investment field. Most of the investment agreement is in the stores. " How do you get the coveted invitation to a cup of coffee? For young startups path to fame - competitions. Investors do not necessarily spend the weekend with sponsored projects, invented right there on the knee, or wait for an invitation to the closed investtusovku - list of participants or finalists of competitions - a great base of contacts. Investors are among the most status Russian competitions called BIT, WebReady, «Start-up year." However, startups themselves, even the winners warn that not all the contests are equally useful. Alexander Polynov, co-founder of a startup Wobot, service monitoring social media as a positive example of competition leads HSE {10k}, organized by the Business Incubator of the HSE. The competition has allowed the project to the next stage of development, to attract public interest and the target audience of investors. The prize will accelerate the development, to expand the team - winning $ 7 thousand from $ 10 thousand prize money allocated to the RVC. Yevgeny Kuznetsov believes that BIT in Russia - the best in scale and size, because the competition is not only at the federal level, but also in Russia's regions, combining formats education, counseling participants startup projects, dating young entrepreneurs with experts and investors. In this BIT built as the Russian equivalent of the most authoritative international platform - MIT 100K, which is considered the best in the world competition of its kind. Speaking of the most prominent international competitions, the expert noted IBTEC - International Championship business plan Intel-Berkley, in which Russia, as a rule, are winners of the BIT. Also, he mentioned started in Boston in this year's major new project - MassChallenge, participation in which the Russian team took place with the support RVC. "He won the competition - got more opportunities for investment," - this statement is Alexander Polynov generally considered a myth. In his view, is much better to work directly with the funds. Catching the mood, the site offers features such startups. Movement "begins" at the beginning of autumn has organized its own venture fund, and this, according to organizers, will be an additional factor for attracting projects. "Now, to us are increasingly more mature team, as they see a working model of the rapid development of its business and the opportunity to show investors", - says Alex Charles. Thinking about traveling to find investors often come to mind organizers promising projects - though often they want to go abroad. Partner AddVenvhurFund Masolova Elena believes that the benefits of the activities are many, and gives examples of their trip to Silicon Valley. "There's a week is not less than 100-150 different events (presentations, conferences, master classes, competitions, and just networking) -" three houses at night is called "", - said the expert. However, too much haste is not worth it. For domestic exchanges may soon add and authoritative western. Thus, the iconic portal TechCrunch will attend the opening of Russia's first private tehnoinkubatora startups. The event program, which will be held on December 13 in DigitalOctoberCenter, in the former factory "Red October", is still unknown, but the organizers promise a presentation startups to investors.