Results of the IT project contest Web&Tech Ready 2015

On October 20, the final of VII Open Contest of IT Projects Web&TechReady took place in Skolkovo Hypercube. This year, 20 projects were awarded in three main and ten special nominations. Additionally, 12 companies obtained cash grants from Skolkovo Fund in a total amount of RUR48M.

Web&Tech Ready Investment Forum gathered over 700 representatives of IT and investment communities. In the opening ceremony of the final stage, the Minister of Communications of Russia Nikolay Nikiforov gave a welcoming speech. “I’d like to congratulate you with reaching the final stage,” he addressed the teams, “Over 4,000 projects have already passed through Web&Tech Ready, and many of them have gotten firm on their feet and obtained additional investment. It shows we’re on the right path. We advance towards innovation, knowledge-intensive startups and promising projects. This year, we’ve witnessed tremendously solid projects, outstanding ideas, and giant potential of the teams.”

Main nominations, Seed and Startup, differed in the development stage, the Spinoff nomination invited projects created within large companies and singled out into separate business units. A total of 712 teams from 106 cities took part in the contest. 65 Russian and foreign business incubators and accelerators presented their projects.

Sum&Substance project, a platform for authenticity check of digital documents, won the Startup nomination. The Jury awarded the second place to a face recognition cloud service, Face_IS. The third place went to AppFollow service allowing its developers to analyse applications of rivals in App Store and Google Play.

The Last.Backend company became the best in the Seed nomination; it developed a platform for automation of server application development and deployment. The second place belongs to an augmented reality projector for cars, Crystal Vision HUD. The third place award was conferred on the Surfancy project, a device creating sensor area on any surface.

The Spinoff nomination was won by WorksPad, a solution arranging a mobile workplace (on a tablet) for corporate users. VoiceKey.ONEPASS tool for user verification by voice and face in mobile apps took the second place. The third place was awarded to Brand Analytics, a system of brand monitoring and analysis in media in real time.

Nominations of Skolkovo Fund were awarded in four sectors, each including three winning places.

In IT Security nomination, VoiceKey.ONEPASS was the winner, Sum&Substance took the second place, and SkyDNS, a service and software for content screening of the Internet and protection against web hazards, was the third.

In the Mobile Technology nomination, WorksPad got the first place, Merkata cashier app for tablets with a cloud stock accounting system, was the second, and Surfancy was the third.

In the Game and Gamification Technology nomination, the first place went to Unigine software platform for interactive 3D visualisation, the second was PlayKey cloud service for launch of top computer games at any device without installation or downloading. The third-place winner was Magic Toys, company developing games with augmented reality for children.

In the Industry 4.0 nomination, ExoAtlet, a medical exoskeleton for rehabilitation of patients with paraplegia of stroke, injury or failedoperation origin, received the top award, the second place was awarded to AKB Monitoring, a wireless system of traction battery monitoring and diagnostics, and the third place went to Face_IS.

The winners could obtain mini-grants of three to five million roubles from Skolkovo Fund. Total award amount in all nominations listed comprised RUR 48M.

In Intel’s nomination for technology projects, AKB Monitoring, Promobot autonomous promotion robot, and Face_IS were awarded.

Beside the named products, partners’ awards were granted to other projects as well. By the results of the investment session, EMC awarded Sum&Substance. Google gave an award to MyDiaspora, a dating service following Oriental traditions and Islamic religious codes. A special prize from IIDF was obtained by Thing, a wiki of things, storage and communication service for data on the world of things.

For the first time, new within Web&Tech Ready nominations were established by the Untitled retail lab fund and business support consortium of Finnish companies, Team Finland. The Retail Performance nomination set by Untitled has been won by a service of personal content recommendations for online media and stores, E-Contenta. The Team Finland award went to the PlayKey service.

Besides the contest program, all entrepreneurs interested presented their projects to 25 venture funds at the VC Corner session within Web&Tech Ready Forum, received recommendations for successful development at the Mentor session, and learned more about “the learned helplessness of startups” and ways to address it together with the Think Big discussion participants at the main stage.

Together with iDealMachine, Skolkovo Mobile Technology Center arranged a pitch session of projects of the first issue of its accelerator.

Within the event, Nikolay Nikiforov, the Head of the Ministry of Communications, took part in the grand opening ceremony of Blaise Pascal Street in Skolkovo. A memorial sign in the form of the famous Pascal’s pyramid that has served as a basis for one of the machine languages was set to mark the foundation of the street.

Members of the contest Jury were: Aleksandr Yegorov (Reksoft), Pavel Bogdanov (Almaz Capital), Aleksandr Turkot (Maxfield Capital), Filipp Gens (LANIT), Igor Bogachyov (Skolkovo), Yevgeny Roitman (Antares Group), Konstantin Sinyushin (the Untitled retail lab), Viktor Orlovsky (SBTV Fund I), Aleksandr Lyskovsky (Alawar), Igor Kaloshin (Intel Software), Dmitry Galperin (Runa Capital), Gennady Nissenbaum (Google), Dmitry Kalayev (IIDF), Aleksandr Chachava (LETA Capital), and others.

Skolkovo Fund is a co-organizer of Web&Tech Ready. Intel is a technology partner. Partners include EMC, Google, Kaspersky Lab, Invest in Finland program, and Team Finland, a consortium of Finnish business support companies. The Contest is supported by IIDF, the Untitled retail lab venture trust, ITMO University, Moscow Stock Exchange, and Association of Software Developers RUSSOFT.