Season_Screen_TV_Review_№6-web

STARTUP
IN SEARCH OF ANGEL INVESTMENTS
HOW OFTEN DO YOU
HEAR THE WORD?
Startup. It whas become increasingly popular as of late. This platform creates fertile ground for
collaboration of major players and young startuppers. The former have the power of their brand,
access to audience and financial resources, and the latter possess ideas, flexibility, innovativeness,
and can quickly adapt to the dynamic market. In our high-tech time, it’s a fact that media industry
desperately needs startups.
Forseveral years, Startup.Network Investment
Platform has been holding Startup Battle, a unique
business event aimed to provide assistance to young
entrepreneurs in assessment of the readiness and
investment appeal of their projects and procurement of
their first angel investments. Thanks to the event, several
most fantastic projects have been already successfully
implemented.
Aleksandr Soroka, CEO of Startup.Network: We
hold our event, first of all, to popularize entrepreneurship
and, of course, to help investors find really interesting
startups. As a rule, winners of the Startup Battles end up
finding the necessary investments, although it’s not the
winning that is important in the Olympic Games, and
if investors find out that the project has participated in
such event, they take great interest in it. So, here is my
advice: take part, train, and stand out to perfect your
presentation.
Startup Battle participants have a unique opportunity
to meet the major players of the global market of venture
investment with more than one successful business
project under their belts, adopt their best practices, learn
of the latest trends in the world of investment, present
their business ideas to experienced colleagues and hear
their expert opinion and advice.
Dmitry Kuzmenko, CEO & founder of Startup.
Network: Startup Battle is held monthly. To participate,
one must propose one’s own investment project to
hundreds of potential investors, present it before the
members of Startup.Network expert board, and then
before business angels, representatives of venture capital
funds and investment banks at the Project Battle Finale
held by Startup.Network twice a year — in fall and in
spring.
As a rule, the event has two stages: the entrepreneurial
unit and the investment unit. During the first one, venture
market experts with more than one successful business
project under the belt share their experience with young
colleagues, describe the trends of the investment world,
give valuable advice, and answer the questions of the
event guests and participants.
During the second unit, the participants present their
Aleksandr Soroka
projects to owners and top managers of major Ukrainian
companies, private investors, representative of venture
and seed funds, and heads of incubation and acceleration
programs. Presentation of one project takes 6 minutes,
3 of which are allocated to presentation itself, and another
three are reserved for questions from experts and event
guests.
Two projects that score the highest after the presentation
win the Battle. One is the participant that has
attracted most of attention from the investors, and the
other is the participant that has received most votes from
the event guests.
Startup.Network has successfully held 45th Startup
Battle, and has certain results. Every second project from
the Startup Battle is already a business, as well as 30%
of those that have entered the Battle and subsequently
received investments within half a year. It does not always
happen at once; sometimes projects need more work.
The list of investors includes Ukraine, Russia, the Baltics.
Minimum amount invested into a project constitutes
USD 10-15 ths., and the highest achieved investment
constituted USD 300 ths.
Dmitry Bezkorovainy, CTO of Mymobstr: We
ranked first in Startup Battle following the public
voting. What did we get from it? Thanks to the Battle, we
have found our investor. It is a great event for aspiring
entrepreneurs, and its main appeal is in its availability.
Sergei Pasichnik, CEO of Vint Design Bureau:
I presented my project at two Battles. The first one was
followed by several interesting meetings. And the second
one led to me meeting my investor. I entered the event
with a definite purpose in mind — to get positive results.
And so I did: within several weeks after the Battle, I was
already negotiating with investor and had the contract
concluded by the New Year.
Roman Zadirako, CEO of Tooltip.io: A young
entrepreneur has to make oneself visible, people should
know about you, you should communicate with users and
experts. Such events provide the possibility to interact
with nice and useful people and meet investors and
experts of their trade.
Today, there are special services to help startuppers
and investors find each other. Startup.Network Investment
Platform is one of them.
An event like Startup Battle is an excellent opportunity
for entrepreneurs to obtain valuable experience of presenting
their project, receive feedback from potential
users and investors, and establish useful contacts.
Independent competent assessment is important
in any business. And it is simply vital for startups, not
only for the investor, but for the entrepreneur as well.
The former needs to assess the project correctly in order
to make much of the investment or at least avoid losses;
and the latter needs to know the criteria to match for
procuring the required amount of investments.
Today, startup projects are an industry of their own.
Interest in them is expected to grow in the future.
However, we must not forget that, according to various
estimates, only 5 to 10% of the projects achieve actual
success. Media industry is considered to be one of the
most promising ones for the next few years.
Startups should be viewed as an alternative to participation
in film festivals. Often, young filmmakers with a
short film and a ton of ambition run around film festivals
searching for a sponsor. However, only few filmmakers
managed to do their first feature film thanks to participation
in a film festival. The others got nothing from their
victories. Participation of media projects at such events
is an excellent opportunity to find the missing resources.
A new, original, unconventional idea in high demand
at the market is important for a new business. Sometimes
investors are prepared to pay for the idea itself, even
without implementation. Most often they are interested
in young startuppers who are usually completely engrossed
in their project and are ready to stain every sinew
for its success. Thus, key success factors are creative ideas
and, of course, a good team.
Startup is a good opportunity to procure foreign
investments. Today, many countries offer super-favorable
terms for entrepreneurs to start their businesses. As you
know, startups are responsible for around 40 ths. jobs in
Europe every year. For example, in Chile startuppers don’t
even have to look for money: if you have a good idea, the
government shall give it to you. Great Britain and Canada
have special funds operating that are ready to finance an
aspiring company. We should adopt the experience of our
colleagues, and we are on the right track. ▪
26 ▪ Issue 6 JUNE 2016 Season Screen TV Review
sstrnews.com
Issue 6 JUNE 2016 ▪ 27