GoTech: where startups and investors meet

GoTech is the largest independent competition of tech companies in Russia and Eastern Europe and a forum dedicated to global business and technologies under the same name.

The competition offers a unique chance to win a ticket to international startup-forums, attract investment, bring partners on board or launch pilots together with some largest international corporations. GoTech forum brings together leading international funds that are looking for technologies and companies with truly global potential. The new platform of the forum called Business Alley invites corporations, development institutes or even countries to talk about opportunities they provide to Russian startups for successful expansion to the global market.

All participants are divided into several categories. There are startups and development teams, that are interested in attracting investment or launching pilot projects with corporations. There are investors, interested in new startups. Finally, there are representatives of funds and corporations, interested to listen to colleagues, watch pitches of different new startups.

Below you can read more about specific opportunities that GoTech forum offers to participants from different categories.

For startups

Since 2009 the GoTech team have been supporting startup’s their various interactions with corporates and investors. We created a platform where new technology can break through into a real business.

There are several nominations within this tech competition. Some of them are independent nominations, where the winner is selected by a large pull of experts or some nominations designed specifically for selected partners. For example, this year there are such nominations by  «Beeline», «Kaspersky Lab», Dell EMC, Google, «Raiffeisen bank» and many others. Every year 10-15 nominations are presented by partners that are interested to find new teams to collaborate with.

Over 60 GoTech winners and finalists have attracted investment within a year after participating in the competition. That’s every second project. For example, last year’s winner Antilatency got 120 million rubles in investment capital by GoTech’s returning partner IIDF. Antilatency is a positional tracking solution for mobile virtual reality.

Winners of GoTech special nominations get tickets to international forums such as Web Summit in Lisbon, Slush in Helsinki, Seedstarts Summit in Switzerland.

The winner also gets an investment offer and an invitation to an accelerator that will help the startup to launch its product on a global market. This year this opportunity is provided by the Starta Accelerator New York.

Former prize winners in different nominations have been recognized in international accelerators and competitions. For example, VisionLabs winner of the Intel nomination also became a winner of an international competition Challenge Up. Startup Go+  was representing Russia at the Intel Global Challange in Berkeley (California, USA). MyDiaspora became a part of a Google accelerator in Israel, e-Contenta kick-started their USA expansion after winning the competition in 2015 and acquiring investment fund by the Untitled.

Every year the competition features Finlanding nomination that offers support in Helsinki and Kotka regions for the winners. They get a chance to start European expansion through Finland.

Every startup has a chance to take care of finding an investor on their own. However, after filling in the GoTech application, a startup automatically gets the attention of relevant corporations and finds. There are over 50 companies that have not launched a specific nomination but are highly engaged with the forum looking for new startups for their programs outside of the main competition agenda.

For example, take Geomatrix - last year’s winner of the Runa Capital nomination. On top of that, they have been accepted to PepsiCo accelerator, that match was facilitated by the GoTech team outside of the main competition agenda. GoTech team has also invited Geomatrix founders to participate in networking events, thanks to that invite founders are now in conversation with two large retail clients. Even if the startup does not become a GoTech finalist, but gets into the competition funnel, GoTech team facilitates the conversation with a relevant investor or strategist. One can say that GoTech team partially takes on a role of a startup mentor if we can recognize project’s potential. We start by getting to know the startup, getting immersed in ideas and then start inviting founders to various events. Sometimes we find exciting new technologies we want to support through contacts and resources. For example that happened with Tvori  - a platform that enables co-creation of 3D worlds and animated stories in virtual reality. After winning a pre-selection round for Russian startups organized by GoTech in Saint Petersburg, this startup got a chance to participate in Startup LOGIN forum in Vilnius. GoTech forum offers every startup a chance to meet investors and corporate representatives one on one.

Those seeking publicity and recognition also get a chance to meet media. There are several networking formats during the forum:

VC Corner  - a platform for one on one meetings between startups and investors.

Press Corner - a platform for one on one meetings between startups and journalists.

Competition Finals - if a startup is shortlisted in any nomination, it automatically gets a chance to present on the main stage and to meet representatives of the nomination founding corporation.

Pitch Stage - topic-based pitch-sessions for startups pre-selected by sessions partners from the entire pool of competition participants. This year we are opening this platform for the first time. Pitch Stage will host pitches in the area of Digital Health and FunTech.

This year Pitch Stage will also host the  VC Pitch, where we invite tech startups in IT (Machine Learning, Big Data, AR | VR, IoT and etc.), that are looking for investment, have already validated demand and have formulated a clear investment proposition. Judges panel consists of VC  representatives and business-angels.

Understanding that Russian market for innovative products is still small, we choose to focus on supporting startups in launching their products internationally.

For Investors

Every investor can send a scouting request to get a selection of our funnel that consists of 6000 startups, according to his chosen criteria. Targeted startups search is also possible during the competition though a nomination, a pitch-session or outside of the competition agenda by announcing an own competition or selecting startups from the database.

During the forum on October 12 investors can schedule an individual meeting with startups using an investment platform VC corner. To do so you are required to purchase a ticket and study a list of about 300 startups registered for the forum. You can let the forum organizing team know about 10 startups that you would like to meet in person. During the forum, you can also listen to speakers from leading international companies on the main stage, visit Private VC Lounge to meet colleges, watch startup presentations on the Pitch Stage, where founders will present projects in specific areas. Leading funds such as Runa Capital, Almaz Capital, Altair Capital, IIDF, LETA Capital, Starta Capital, Phystech Ventures, Intel Capital, Maxfield Capital, the Untitled, Vestor.in, Sistema VC, Bright Capital, and others have GoTech projects in their portfolios.

For corporates

Corporate representatives get access to startups portfolio in their own nomination or in the main nomination plus in the pitch-session. This is an excellent opportunity to evaluate the current state of the market, listen to its leading players, watch a new start of the IT world being born.

Here you can also find an effective business development solution or a startup to collaborate with on such a solution.

Just as investors, corporate can launch own nominations, special prizes or become partners of the forum or of a specific section of the forum.

On top of that corporate representatives can offer their master-classes to startups and students, tell about opportunities they offer and participate in the GoTech forum exhibition at the Business Alley.

There are also more opportunities for the corporates outside of the main competition agenda. Our database of startups is ever growing. We are constantly scanning the database to offer you more startups that meet your specific requirements. We also coach these startups, so when they are ready to meet you they don’t just present a standard pitch but offer a specific solution that is relevant to your corporate strategy.