What Do the Corporations Expect of Working With Startups?

Andrei Sharov

Vice President, Head of Small Business’ Development Department Sberbank

Answering the title question of the debate, Sharov said that for the Sberbank working with startups is the opportunity to survive in the future: "Nowadays there are many non-bank payment systems and convenient services, and to remain at the current level we have to offer better services". He listed startups which cooperate with Sberbank. For example, the service Angry helps the company to analyze the attitude of social networks to company and displays it in the form of areas on the city map. Startup Platius allows to pay mobile payments, bonuses and gifts through acquiring.

Today Sberbank is looking for technologies from the field of fintech and payment systems, and in the nearest future it will be interested in projects in other areas, such as, for example, biotechnology, Sharov said.

The expert also warned participants that no one of banks in the country give loans to startups. But if a startup has a prototype or product, Sberbank is ready to offer the investor. "Because all the big companies in our country are our investors", he commented question from the audience. Lending of a startup in the Sberbank occurs only if the investor believed in the project.

Sergey Maksimchuk

Project manager of "Alfa-Start" in Alfa-Bank

Sergey marked several areas of the bank's interests. These are projects related to mobile payments, risk management, big data, P2P-lending, gamification of banking products and logistics. Also the bank considers cooperation with startups at all stages of their development.

Maksimchuk stressed that it is needed at least presence of some formal criteria such as the presence of a legal entity for the bank to begin working with startups. The big advantage for the project will be participating in the accelerator or having investments of venture capital fund. It is a kind of external filter. Founders’ of the project investments are also important, according to the Alfa-Bank representative, it means that entrepreneurs are serious.

   Christoph Janssen

Director of Innovation, Johnson&Johnson

Christoph explained why a large international market player needs startups: "We, like other corporations, have our own internal R&D, but we have long ago recognized that we depend directly of the innovators, who are outside of our structures. We invest in various projects, accompany them and help them pass this way. At some stages we provide an opportunity for the startups to work in our facilities. This is very useful, for example, for projects in genetic engineering, startups keep their know-how, but we do medical studies ourselves." According to statistics, only 5% of biomed-startups eventually create a product, and if the project, in which Johnson&Johnson invested, is among those 5% of the company it purchases».

Denis Gusev

Head of sports technology incubator of ROC Innovation Centre

Denis noticed that the American sporting goods market is growing at a rate of 60-70 projects per year, meanwhile in Russia just a few years ago there were no examples of corporations that specialized in the sports equipment.

Gusev told the participants about the statement of "Sportmaster", which was perceived by the committee with interest. "A month ago “Sportmaster” said that if we caught startups implementing new sports equipment or handling it with new coverings, the company is ready to take these projects into its center and even lead them, and the product will appear on shelves in more than 300 stores of “Sportsmaster”.

Kirill Kozhevnikov

Investment director of Sistema JSFC

Kirill spoke about the inertia of corporations in his speech. He explained to businessmen why do the big companies so slowly and reluctantly accept the decision to purchase innovative solutions, "Corporations are concentrated on direct performance indicators, rather than indirect. Innovation is a very long process that does not motivate the manager to think about their bonuses". In addition, corporations often do not have the leader of the process and there is always a conflict of interests. For example, the result of the introduction of innovative solutions into a company can occur retrenchment.

Andrey Sebrant

Director of marketing services, Yandex

Andrey noticed one of the major mistakes that almost all entrepreneurs do when they come to the corporation, "If you come to the investor and start talking about the financial model of your project - you are making a big mistake. You came not for funding, but to be bought. Tell us about what you are giving to people and why the company will be able to serve the customers better if your project will be bought". Also Andrey Sebrant said: "As a startup in the corporation you will die. But it is the most comfortable option of death. Because the uncomfortable option it is when you're just dying and going to do everything from scratch. In our scenario, you started to realize your dream of making users happy, because a large corporation is the best distribution channel".

Sergey Afanasiev

Purchasing Director of Information Technology, MTS

Sergey admitted that the company is interested to attract innovative solutions and models in their business environment: "We always ask the market what is new can participants offer us and how is it developed" - ended his speech Afanasiev. - We try not only to consider all the proposals received, but also to give useful feedback".

Kirill Smirnov

Program manager for government relations and public organizations, MasterCard

MasterCard, like every startup in the banking sector, according to Kirill Smirnov, needs startups developing mobile applications and on-line security.

After the roundtable discussion corporations and startups - participants of GenerationS were able to talk tête-à-tête and discuss possible ways of cooperation.