Kazan to host anniversary XV Russian Venture Forum at 2nd attempt
Kazan is gathering more than 200 investors
From April 7 to 8, Kazan Expo hosts the 15th anniversary Russian Venture Forum, the main theme of which is 'Russia and the World in the context of the transformation of the technological agenda'. About 3,000 participants and about 200 foreign and Russian investors are expected. The forum itself will be held in two formats — offline and online.
According to the head of the Investment and Venture Fund of the Republic of Tatarstan, Aynur Aydeldinov, this major forum was supposed to be held in the Tatarstan capital last year, but it was cancelled due to the lockdown. The organizers are the Investment and Venture Fund of Tatarstan, Russian Venture Investment Association (RAVI) and Pulsar Venture Capital Group.
Within the framework of the two-day programme, Russian and foreign businessmen, investors, analysts, as well as President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, First Deputy Director General of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Anatoly Braverman, founder and managing partner of Almaz Capital Partners venture fund Alexander Galitsky, Chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation Arkady Dvorkovich and others will speak at the forum.
Multi-million-dollar grants to the winners of the startup competition
The presentation of startups that have passed the preliminary competitive selection will be held within the framework of the forum. This year, about 350 companies have submitted applications for the contest of promising technological projects. The judging panel has already selected 50 of them — participants who have already passed preliminary examinations, are ready to sell on global markets and attract investments. These developments will be presented to investors — participants of the forum.
Competitive startups will be divided into two programmes. 'Idea 1000' — here they will choose the six best, who will receive a grant of 3 million rubles. This year, the competition received about 140 applications from developers from Russia, Germany, Indonesia, the Czech Republic and Kazakhstan. About 10 more projects will be selected for participation under the international acceleration programme, where the grant is much higher — 5 million rubles. Besides, the winners will have the opportunity to raise up to 1 million euros from the accelerator's global partners. Applications for this part of the competition have been submitted by developers from 14 countries.
Half of applications are from Tatarstan
“Ten years ago, when we started the programme '50 innovative ideas', we could not even dream that due to applications for competitions we would have a whole market of startups," said Aydeldinov. “The market of the republic has undergone a radical transformation, of the 300-400 projects that we collect annually, half of the applications come from Tatarstan. The startup market — we can safely say today, it exists, it exists, it is growing stronger and growing.”
When selecting applications, priority is given to developments in the field of IT and biotechnology, as well as new materials in the field of medicine and pharmaceuticals — this is “a huge layer for development”, experts explain. Over 15 years, 400 of the 20,000 applications submitted to the competition have turned into successful companies.