More than 50 transactions were concluded by the founders of GenerationS-2016 start-ups with corporations and investors

Cooperation with corporations

GenerationS partner companies have chosen the accelerator as a platform for implementing their own innovative programs and developing tools for "open innovations". The experts of the companies participated in the selection and acceleration of projects. QIWI, Moscow Stock Exchange, Raiffeisenbank, VTB24, BFK Severny, Krastsvetmet, ALROSA diamond company, EFCO Group of Companies, NPO Saturn, Russian Technical Society, Publicis Communications Russia, and producer centre Sher Oston plan to use the technologies and developments of accelerator participants in their production and business processes. Many technological entrepreneurs have concluded cooperation agreements, launched pilot projects with corporations and managed to attract investments already during the accelerating program. Out of 120 teams of start-ups that reached corporate accelerators, more than 70 have already concluded agreements or are negotiating with corporations on cooperation.

Most transactions and pilot projects were concluded in the FinTech direction of GenerationS: start-up teams have signed 35 agreements with corporations and intend to conduct 19 pilot projects.

QIWI, an industrial partner of the accelerator FinTech direction, has been developing a model of "open innovations" for several years now. In partnership with GenerationS, the QIWI Group’s venture department focuses on the development of new FinTech products together with technology entrepreneurs and is looking for new portfolio companies among the accelerator participants. Following the results of the acceleration program, the corporation plans to cooperate with four graduates of GenerationS-2016: Simple Invest, Oz Photo Expert, Panda Money and Finhub.

QIWI conducted a pilot project with the team of the Simple Invest project, the developers of the Russian Robinhood mobile application that made is possible to test key communication channels with users and check various solutions. As a result, the start-up team received from QIWI a second tranche of financing for the further development and scaling of the product.

QIWI and Oz Photo Expert project developers have launched a joint pilot project for testing biometric identification to protect against fraud. The corporation plans to apply Oz Photo Expert expertise in its products.

With the help of the Finhub team, QIWI plans to develop a convenient lending tool for a certain category of partners. In turn, the partner company GenerationS cooperates with the team of Panda Money in the area of increasing the financial literacy of children and their parents. In addition, QIWI actively interacts with other participants of the FinTech direction at GenerationS, which could become partners of the corporation in the future.

"Participation in the GenerationS accelerator as an industrial partner gave us an opportunity to cover most of the Russian FinTech market and to work closely within several months with the best projects. During GenerationS, we were able to launch pilots, test the key business hypotheses on the projects and understand how particular joint products can be in-demand or have value for our audience of customers and partners, and also how deep they are built into the QIWI product infrastructure. In the future, we plan to work with projects to create full-fledged joint products", said Olga Turzhanskaya, Director of the Venture Division of QIWI Group.

Industrial Partner of GenerationS Moscow Stock Exchange during the accelerator carried out the selection of promising FinTech-projects in the field of big data, artificial intelligence, investment tools based on exchange products, blockchain and crowdfunding technologies. Thirteen projects in total were selected, nine managed to reach the final. Throughout the accelerated program, project teams actively interacted with experts and mentors on the part of the industrial partner. In particular, the Moscow Stock Exchange conducted a joint pilot project with the Cindicator project team: within three weeks, the trading robot from Cindicator made deals on the basis of the collective opinion of non-professional traders. In total, the robot simulated 27 transactions based on the participants’ forecasts during the competition, 17 of which were profitable. As a result, during the contest, the model portfolio grew by 2.8% in currency, which was equal to 47% per annum.

FinTech partner of GenerationS VTB 24 prepares a joint pilot project with the Finhub team, which won in the category "Best FinTech-start-up for B2B".Raiffeisenbank, based upon the results of Raiffeisen Award special nomination, plans to launch pilot projects with project teams Oz Photo Expert, Eco Banking System and Thewaay.

In other areas of the accelerator, partner corporations and technology entrepreneurs also launch pilot projects and plan further joint work. Therefore, the group of companies EFCO is the industrial partner of the track AgroBioTech & Food GenerationS for the second year in a row. The company is looking for new ideas and promising teams with the help of accelerator to cover all possible growth points, not limited to the resources of its own R & D divisions. GC EFKO will continue to work with five start-ups: "Green Technologies Manufacturing", "DNA Test Systems for the Food Industry", "Hybrid Technologies for Mixing and Pre-Seeding Treatment of EcoMix Seeds", "New Technology for Processing Oilseed Waste", "Technology for Obtaining Enzymes for Detergents". Within the framework of the cooperation, the company plans to test applied developments of project teams, create pilot plants and by using them to refine the technology of start-ups, and, if successful, to assess the potential for implementation into their production. In addition, EFCO plans to become an anchor client for one of the start-ups.

"Given the complexity of the track, we are pleased with the outcome of cooperation with GenerationS. The agro-industrial sector, especially the agriculture and processing industry in our country needs a sharp increase in efficiency, and blind copying of imported technologies, without taking into account the specifics of real production and local conditions, will not give a result", sums up the Director of the centre "Biryuch-NT", R & D centre of "EFKO" Group, Tatyana Sanina. "We need to pursue independent, targeted and thoughtful work on the cultivation of domestic technologies and effective Russian researchers in the field of AgroBioTech. It’s a long way, but exactly this way will give Russia a chance to create real breakthrough products and world-class technologies in this direction."

Publicis Communications Russia, partner of GenerationS in the field of advertising and design, chose four teams of start-up participants who became residents of the communication group. Together with the winners of GenerationS-2016, the team of the "BOFT" project, Publicis Communications Russia develop new product offerings within the existing system of vending services and mobile applications according to the requests of large advertisers. With developers of VidiGuide cloud application, the GenerationS partner is working on pilot implementation and full-fledged launch of the application in partnership with famous cultural institutions and large advertisers. Together with the Local Guide team, which created a platform for booking tour guide services and services for tourists, the communication team is considering a partner launch with an advertiser as part of the sponsorship of the football championship next year. In addition, Publicis Communications Russia is developing a proposal to launch the service with developers of Tagvisor application for finding cafes, bars and restaurants based on analytics from social networks.

Attraction of investments

During the acceleration program, the GenerationS-2016 participants came in sight of investors and were able to raise private capital, which will help them in the further development of projects.

Business angel Alexander Rumyantsev within his own nomination, invested in nine GenerationS projects: car rental service darenta. ru, marketplace of personal training trainhub. net, auction platform watermelon. su, a musical social network grammygo. com, patent community service "патентное-сообщество. рф", gamer service landroshop. com, marketplace of author’s linen trusbox. ru, recruitment service in social networks 2work. co and service for the joint lease of offices officesharing. en. The investor received 10% of the start-up in each of the transactions.

"GenerationS provided an excellent opportunity to find new projects for investments. Initially, I had a plan to invest in five projects, but in the end, I chose nine technology IT start-ups of different directions. I plan to continue cooperation with GenerationS, noted Alexander Rumyantsev.

Two more GenerationS projects received investment proposals from the Investors’ Club VentureClub. The Club members are ready to invest 100 thousand dollars in the team of the Moscow start-up Cindicator, which is engaged in predictive market analytics for hedge funds and individual investors, and 50 thousand dollars in the project "Arena Leader" — a platform for the integration of engineering systems to ensure safety of public spaces.

"GenerationS enables corporations and investors to take a closer look at projects in the accelerated program format and decide on cooperation. We are glad that more than half of the GenerationS members manages to start joint projects with corporations and sign investment deals each year at the end of the accelerator", commented Gulnara Bikkulova, Deputy General Director of RVC and ideologist of GenerationS.

According to the earlier monitoring of GenerationS alumni, 27% of the companies from among the respondents could raise investments, investments amounted to 1.13 billion rubles, the total evaluation of business — 2.2 billion rubles. The total revenue in 2015 reached 1.2 billion rubles. As many as 270 participants of the accelerator participated in the monitoring.