The fifth annual Investor Day-IDCEE affirmed itself as an important event on the international high tech scene, attracting some 2000 participants, including representatives from 150 startups and 200 investors from 34 countries. The two day long event was held in Kiev, Ukraine, on October 25 – 26 (see videos)
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The venue’s ‘startup alley’ was continuously filled to capacity with entrepreneurs and investors and from among the throng 12 startups were selected for the pitching session. The first prize of €6,000 went to Mixgar, a Hungarian startup which has developed playlist generation software that incorporates users preferences in any venue, from cafes to music festivals. QuoteRoller from Belarus received second prize with its business document exchange solutions.
The contest also honored two startups from Russia. Speaktoit, which describes itself as “a virtual buddy for your smartphone that answers questions in natural language, performs tasks, and notifies you about important events,” won the third prize, while PinPoint, which allows you to mark and describe any location on the globe, came in fourth.
Other startups that received attention included Balakam from Russia, Kooldiner from France, Mysellr from Macedonia, Mythings from the UK, Piano from Slovakia, Synchropolis from Ukraine, Xeebel from Germany and Zakaz.ua, a Ukrainian e-commerce solution provider.
Venture capitalists go East
Prominent investors from Eastern and Western Europe and even the United States were on the scene. The event itself was co-organized by TA Ventures, an international venture fund based in Kiev which recently launched a Russian version of its European low cost airfare search site BravoFly under the local brand BravoAvia.ru.
Among the venture capitalists in attendance were Alex Baker of BlackBerry Partners Fund, Sergey Belousov of Runa Capital, Esther Dyson of EDventure Holdings, Sasha Galitsky from Almaz Capital, Stefan Glaenzer from White Bear Yard, Sergey Karpov and Maxim Medvedev of AddVenture, Andrey Kolodyuk of AVentures, Jose Marin of IG Expansion, Florian Schweitzer of B-to-V Partners, Edward Shenderovich of Kite Ventures, Igor Taber from Intel Capital, Denis Tafintsev of Horizon Capital, David Waroquier of Mangrove Capital Partners, and others. Russian Venture Company, the state owned fund of funds dedicated to innovation, was represented by Igor Pichugin.
At the afterparty organized at the Leo Club under the auspices of Forbes magazine, Esther Dyson shared her views on “the next big things” in technologies. Among the most promising technologies of the future according to Dyson are body control systems and pattern recognition solutions. The latter will affirm themselves more and more because “the issue is no more to search or find but to filter,” she explained.
The veteran tech investor revealed that she has made to date about 150 investments, “including 30 successes and 20 failures,” she said in almost perfect Russian. Among the successes is Yandex, the Russian search giant which began trading on the NASDAQ in May of this year and of which Dyson is member of the board.
Discussing the future of e-commerce
The rich conference program covered a number of major issues percolating in today’s Internet and mobile industries. In a discussion on the future of e-commerce, moderated by East-West Digital News, prominent Russian and Ukrainian speakers said that their markets lacked maturity for social commerce or other novelties. So much remains to be built in the infrastructure for e-commerce in these countries, they noted, and many segments are still open to new players aiming to build classic e-commerce companies.
David Waroquier of Mangrove Capital Partners, a pioneer in venture investment in the region, saw in KupiVIP the “perfect example” of how an e-commerce startup can successfully address the entire Russian territory despite the complexities connected to the country’s massive size, an insufficient fulfillment and delivery infrastructure and a deeply rooted cash on delivery culture.
In the field of innovative marketing, a lot can still be achieved by first movers, said Bas Godska, the former marketing director of LaModa.ru, an online shoe retailer which affirmed itself as the market leader in Russia only a few months after launch in the spring of this year. “CPA-based retargeting, portfolio based context advertising optimisation – as implemented by Efficient Frontier – as well as affiliate marketing can be tremendous tools in a relatively untapped area,” Godska said.
Investors respond: Why did you come to IDCEE?
- Igor Taber, Russia Investment Director at Intel Capital:
“This is my second year attending this event and I found that the quality of startups, speakers, content and attendees improved exponentially. This reflects not only great job that organizers did but its also a reflection of the significant improvements that are happening in this region in all areas of venture capital. It was a great opportunity to see our old partners and meet new ones as well as interact with number of interesting companies with which we will continue discussions.”
- Maxim Medvedev, founder and Managing Partner at AddVenture:
“We came to this event to have a closer look at the Ukrainian Internet market in terms of users, established business models, opportunities & startups. We also wanted to get in touch with new investors and discuss potential co-investment strategies. We met some good startups, such as food delivery service Ekipazh which is already generating up to 400 orders per day.”
- David Waroquier, Principal at Mangrove Capital Partners:
“In a 5 year period IDCEE has become a leading event in the CIS region and in my view, one of the best tech events in Europe. It is a unique opportunity to meet a large part of the Ukrainian and Russian investor ecosystem and to approach hundreds of startups and entrepreneurs. This event is a great platform where ideas meet capital. Being one of the most active investors in the region, at Mangrove we see IDCEE as a tribute to startup dynamism in the region.”
