National contest-accelerator of innovative projects GenerationS 2014 is continuing to gain momentum.
GenerationS is the federal contest and development accelerator for technology startups which has been run by the Russian Venture Company and the Moscow Innovation Development Centre with support from the Moscow City Hall since 2013.
This gives startups a chance to convert an idea into a successful business, find investors, and acquire valuable connections with the expert community.
The contest offers investors a menu of project carefully hand-picked by a panel of authoritative judges.
Business-accelerator is a model of business support at an early stage which involves an intensive development of a project in the shortest time. The project is provided by investment, infrastructure, expert and information support for the fast entry to the market. Business-accelerators attract investors, both private and institutional, as well as themselves may be partly to act as a fund for the investment in the initial stages.
Contestants are invited to compete for the right to present their projects to investors at the Moscow International Open Innovations Forum, as well as for the RUB 5 million prize and special prizes from contest partners. GenerationS has a training and acceleration program of special significance, designed to teach the basics of running a technology business.
The acceleration training is free for selected startup owners and managers.
A competing project team should submit an application before June 30, 2014, to participate in the GenerationS Contest, choosing one of the following industry tracks:
— Industrial (industrial solutions)
— IT (information technology)
— BioTechMed (biotechnology and medicine)
— CleanTech (energy efficiency and resource conservation).
Applications are accepted from projects in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States in pre-seed (business model ready) and seed (product prototype available) stages of startup life, which have strong potential for entering the market. After a two-stage selection process, project teams will be assigned to acceleration training programs relevant for their business, which will help identify the contest’s semifinalists. They will gather in Moscow for a coaching session with relevant consultants, mentors, investors, business angels and other members of the Moscow business community. The Coaching Session will take place at Russia’s first-ever international-level acceleration platform, API Moscow.
The Final of GenerationS will be an investment session in October 2014 during the Open Innovations Forum.
More detailed information of the statute of the contest can be found here.
Based on materials from the event organizers
