Ingria residents met with a representative of ABRT Venture Fund

Ingria business incubator set a record in October on the number of One to One meetings, conducted between one investor and startups. Alexander Sokolov, an investment analyst at ABRT Venture Fund, met with representatives of 25 startups on the 16th and 17th of October.

ABRT invests in companies at early stages of business development. The Fund works with Mangrove Capital, Insight Venture Partners, Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital for joint investments in Russia.

Projects for the meetings were selected based on the key areas of ABRT - B2B2C and B2C in IT and Internet business. 20 of 25 projects represented Ingria. The rest expressed a desire to join the business incubator after the meeting.

The most productive meetings were those devoted to projects in online travel, e-commerce and technological directions. ABRT fund has accumulated a lot of experience and expertise in the above areas.

The practice of One to One meetings is quite common, but I had it for the first time in such numbers and such tight schedule - Alexander Sokolov shares his impressions. – The advantage of such activities is that founders of companies can openly ask investors pressing questions about the development of their business. The investor evaluates not only the project, but also the responsibility of its team. I would advise start-ups to take into account the specifics of such meetings and summarize their ideas.

In the future, according to Alexander, it is possible that 2 or 3 projects of those he held talks with will be invited for additional and more detailed meetings.