Russian Startup Rating Methodology to Help Select Projects for GenerationS

The Russian Startup Rating aggregates information about high-tech projects from across Russia with a mandatory evaluation of key components by outside experts to identify a startup’s potential.

The Russian Startup Rating methodology provides for evaluation in two stages.

At the first stage, each applicant fills out a detailed questionnaire which is carefully analyzed. Questions are grouped into blocks about the team, the market and the product, about financing, legal aspects, about participation in major business contests, articles and reports published in established business and technology periodicals, etc. The response in each field of the questionnaire is assigned a certain number of points. For example, a project in the idea stage will receive fewer points than a project with a finished prototype. And a project with unregistered and unpatented intellectual property will get a lower grade than one with all IP rights duly protected.

Please see a special section of this website for more details about this methodology.

The second stage involves expert evaluation of the project on three metrics:

— Product. Can a product with the proposed features be made and does it have market potential?
— Market. Is there a market niche for the project, how large is it, and what is the likelihood that the product can win a substantial share of this niche?
— Team. Can the team create and run the proposed business organization.

Expert evaluation will be conducted in person, during events, at which entrepreneurs will be interacting with experts directly and via online channels, to accommodate contest participants from distant regions.

Based on the RSR evaluation, the authors of the best projects will be invited for personal interviews with industry-specific accelerator experts; final lists of acceleration program participants will be based on these interviews.