Founders Bootcamp, a four day intensive training program for Russian startups, took place June 2–5 at the Moscow State University Science Park. More than 60 startup teams gathered to discuss their projects with business angels and venture capitalists from the US and Russia.
The main goal of the event was to jump start the entrepreneurial community in Russia by providing developers and entrepreneurs with advice from a top tier network of company builders, including seed investors, serial entrepreneurs, product experts, HR and PR specialists, marketers, lawyers, recruiters, journalists, and venture capitalists.
Russian companies including Russia Towers, Speereo, SmartLink, ViEye, and Kids Computer emerged the most promising projects in the four day event. Russian Towers is a telecom tower operator focused on construction and leasing space on its own sites and on managed sites in Russia and CIS countries. Speereo develops voice recognition systems for the automotive, marine construction and aerospace industries. SmartLink is working on a solution to link teachers and students worldwide to facilitate online study and sharing of learning materials. ViEye is developing a passive human gesture perception system based on mathematical analysis of images coming from a pair of cameras. The developers intend for the system to replace IR controls. Kids Computer is building special PCs for children aged 4–9. The computers have such features as a large color LCD screen, a rich graphical user interface and a range of multimedia capabilities.
The event was organized by Global Innovation Labs, a company aiming to link entrepreneurs and investors in Russia and the US, and was sponsored by the Russian Venture Company, a state owned financial institution supporting innovation.
