The best Startup-Sabantuy projects in Kazan IT-Park

The Kazan IT Park together with Runa Capital venture fund announced creation of a new exterior project in April. Its essence is that the representatives of these organizations visited the capitals of the Volga Federal District from May to June, where they met with the authors of original ideas in the field of information technology. The so-called Elevator Pitches, that is elimination rounds, took place in the thirteen cities, where the experts chose the best startups. To reach the next stage - Startup-camp - 2000 participants with 130 projects from around the Volga region presented their developments.

Startup-camp lasted five days and took place in Zvezdny country-camp in Naberezhnye Chelny. Here, the authors of the top 30 projects adopted the experience of recognized experts in the field of information technology, marketing and entrepreneurship. The first two days took intensive training. The rest of the time IT specialists dedicated to improvement of their start-up projects. According to the camp session results, only 16 startups reached the final presentation.

DemoDay was held in the conference hall of the Kazan IT-Park. 20 representatives of the investors viewed project presentations, discussed the viability and gave their recommendations to each startup. The potential investors include the following companies: Greenfield, Microsoft Seed Fund, Intel Capital, TexDrive, Global Techinnovations, and others. Not all of the developers were young people; many of them already have experience in various fields. Some projects are already being implemented, for example, famous in Kazan and tested in several houses, speakphone - transmitting audio messages of social and commercial type through all-Russian centralized network of entrance door intercoms.

Following the results of the day, 6 projects received grants from the Federation of Russian Youth:

- Life Print (Kirov) - Testing potential human abilities, based on the technology of fingerprints’ uniqueness analysis;
- Online-Accounting (Ulyanovsk) - cloud service to help you effectively keep accounts;
- Speakphone (Kazan) - transmitting audio messages of social and commercial type through all-Russian centralized network of intercoms;
- Mercury (Naberezhnye Chelny) – the System of Mobile Commerce;
- Gruzobzor.ru (Ufa) - transportation online-exchange;
- Mamatonik (Moscow) - interactive music belt for prenatal upbringing.

Renat Garipov, GreenfieldProject founder, marked that it was difficult to determine the best projects: The fact that certain projects are made special mention of and awarded, yet does not mean that other projects are worse. You still carry enormous potential and are of interest to us. You’d better not be distressed, but strive to be better and gain new victories.

Also, special sympathy of experts was expressed for the following projects:

- Clomix (Naberezhnye Chelny) - cloud service for sales outlets to account goods using mobile applications;
- Alloka-online (Nizhny Novgorod) – platform for tracking and marketing analysis of telephone calls and other incoming calls received during the advertising campaign;
- Marabaka (Kazan) – installation instructions for all sorts of interesting hand-made things for children of primary and secondary school age;
- 123 apps (Kazan) - system for clipping audio files, or converting them to another format in the browser.

Firstly, thanks to Start in Garage I got an important tool that helped me understand the project business model and gave me priceless experience in start-up business planning, - Bulat Saifutdinov, Clomix project manager, commented after the selection was over. - Secondly, training at Harvest allowed me to advance in knowledge of financial planning and proper product presentation. We have found potential customers and investors through presentations. And finally - Demo Day has given me a great number of contacts with potential investors and partners.