Generation S: Russia's Biggest National Startup Competition Shows Record-setting Results

MOSCOW, December 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Generation S, an intensive business acceleration program and Russia's biggest nation-wide startup competition, has brought together 1600 ambitious young entrepreneurs from 80 cities and 18 regions. The competition was organized by RVC (Russian Venture Company), Moscow Center for Innovation in partnership with Digital October Center and BIT business plan contest, supported by biggest national venture funds and international corporations: Microsoft, SAP, Intel, IBM.

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Four Generation S winners - Appercode, WayRay, 3DMetalPrint and BioMicroGel - had shared 5M roubles of prize money and all of the 19 finalists enjoyed investors' attention and prizes from the partners.

The startup contest and accelerator idea initially has been patterned after the MIT 100K entrepreneurship competition and MassChallenge acceleration program run in Massachusetts. Generation S' main goal is to select and mentor the best Russian technological startups, and it has set a national record accumulating 1600 applications from startups from all over Russia and CIS. All of the applications have gone through a profound assessment procedure and only 70 semifinalists and their innovative projects have been selected by panels of industrial and business experts for acceleration program.

Generation S' program this year included three stages: an online course of entrepreneurship, an intensive educational program in Moscow and individual coaching sessions by international business trainers.

Accelerator participants had a lifetime chance to meet and get advice from Russia's business stars like David Yang, the founder of ABBYY and creator of the legendary Cybico device; Natalia Kasperskaya, co-founder and inspirer of world-spread Kaspersky Lab; Anatoly Karachinsky from BusinessWeek's Europe Stars list, president of one of Russia's biggest IT powerhouses. They also met top world experts like Julie Meyer, one of the Global Leaders of Tomorrow and 30 most influential women in Europe who has come to Moscow on purpose to share her experience.

Participants encountered 300 hours of intensive training, mentor sessions from 90 successful entrepreneurs, one-to-one meetings with venture funds, corporations and angel investors. As a short-term result of the program, seven of Generation S' projects have already found their investors within one month after graduation, and over 70% of finalists have got initial interest from investors and business partners.

Contact
Anastasia Malchevskaya, [email protected], +7(495)777-0104  

Video: http://www.multivu.com/mnr/64175-russian-venture-company-entrepreneurship

SOURCE OJSC Russian Venture Company