Speed Dealing at SNCE: «Not a single minute was spent for nothing»

On April 11−12 Moscow ARTPLAY Design Centre was a ground for the first in Russia Congress of Social Media, Applications and Marketing - SNCE. Event assembled a lot of representatives of digital agencies, social networks, venture and investment funds, experts in Internet marketing market, startups and developers.

Speed Dealing as a new format was presented by organizers within SNCE exhibition. This easy and interesting idea has a type of fast deals between startups and investors. Representatives of startup projects were sharing their ideas within 8 minutes only in live face to face meetings with 8 representatives of venture companies and investment funds – high-class specialists, A1 professionals and experts in IT:

• Ekaterina Momot, — Venture Fund Life.SREDA;
• Vasily Shalaev, — Softline Venture Partners;
• Maria Netaeva, — Global TechInnovations;
• Daniil Grizenkov, — ITCAP.

«This was a good idea – to create a stage of such format when startup can communicate directly with investor, present its project. During Speed Dealing we got a chance to sit down to talks and discuss face to face the prospects of cooperation. It was a stress on communication that caused such a stir around the stage», − Yevgeny Leonov, the Renatus Company.

According to appraisals, about 4 most prospective business projects which will be surveyed in detail later were marked out in the judgment of ventures.  Startups got qualitative feedback in return —valuable advices and impartial assessments from experts and, what is of more importance, meetings and contacts.

 «Grounding level of startups who presented their projects was of different levels. Somebody was ready perfectly, but some of them on the contrary presented their material indistinctly. Besides the idea itself, a product should be working and interesting to market. Therefore advantage was gained by those teams which were ready to development and presented the most complete product», − Rostislav Chekmarev, the Renatus Company.

«Startup should believe in his project. During Speed Dealing I was under the impression from time to time that a person had come to get a job. There should be no begging look; you have to be confident of your idea. But in whole a stage attracted much attention. At the same time I didn’t meet there any friend startup, and it means that new projects appear permanently. So a scale of fast deals zone Speed Dealing should grow correspondingly», − Ekaterina Momot, venture fund Life.SREDA.

Despite new and not quite understandable format of Speed Dealing in the beginning, majority of its participants met it with approval.

«I liked the scheme (8 minutes + 4 tables). It gave a possibility to talk within a short term to several investors at once and get qualitative feedback on a given project. Investors were open to contacts, attentive and courteous. I consider this scheme of event conducting successful and recommend to introduce it as a part of such events as well as to create a certain independent variant of mentor networking», − Georgy Chizhov, the «Eventin» project.

«I would like to admit a convenient format of the event which enabled us to talk to all participants on the part of investors although within a minimal term. And an advantage was that nobody had to wait for his turn. Not a single minute out of 8 was spent in vain; incoming questions were concrete, clear and made it possible to reveal the project theme more profoundly. We exchanged business cards and hope for further cooperation. It seemed to us that our project aroused interest. We will go on working and prepare more detailed information for achieving our object»,− Antonina Polishkina, the «Rekomm» project (www.rekomm.ru).

«Thank you for the given chance to talk to investors from big funds. We spent the time really interestingly and with profit. In the future I would like to have a better understanding of time − who speaks and when. I wish you good luck and development of future events!»,− Andrey Fazliev, the «SponsorHub.ru» project.

«I liked the event in whole. But it was difficult to talk about a project for 8 minutes only», − Andrey Belyaev, the «Investment Public Fund» project.

Decisive steps such as participation in Speed Dealing within the SNCE-2014 congress should be taken to stay afloat amongst increasing tide of startups. Next year SNCE plans to extend the Speed Dealing stage so that to enable the greater number of participants to sit down to talks, open world of opportunities which will help business to enter new level and will favour the development of the market in whole.

See you next Speed Dealing−2014!