The largest venture capitalists on "Open Innovations"
TOP 20 leading corporate venture capitalists of the world will visit Moscow
From October 25 to 27, top managers of twenty leading foreign corporate venture funds will visit Moscow. The participants of the visit will not only speak within the framework of the business program of the Open Innovations Forum, but will also hold a number of closed meetings with Russian development institutions in order to discuss attracting foreign venture capital in Russia.
RVC together with the Global Venture Alliance (GVA) will organize a visit of the leaders of twenty of the world's leading corporate venture funds to Moscow to hold key meetings with top managers of Russian corporations, funds, development institutions and private investors. For most delegates, this visit will be the first acquaintance with the Russian innovation ecosystem, as a number of invited foundations have not had business contacts with Russia before. The participants of the visit hope to find partners for doing business and creating joint investment structures, communicate with research organizations, find promising startups, and also get acquainted with representatives of the Russian venture market.
Among the participants of the visit is Mario Acunio, a Partner at McKinsey & Company, Head of McKinsey Solutions in Asia, Singapore, Ravindra Rati, Corporate M&A, PepsiCo Inc and Chris Sykus, Senior Director of Open Innovation at PepsiCo Inc, Kartik Sivan, Strategy Director, Naspers. The largest US corporate venture funds are represented by Eric Steager, Director of Corporate Development and Innovation at Independence Blue Cross, Jim Simmons, Managing Partner at Simmons Goodspeed Ventures, Andrew Romance, General Partner at Rubicon Venture Capital. Top managers of venture funds from England, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Canada, and Turkey will also visit Moscow as part of the delegation.
During the visit, the delegates will hold meetings with the Government of the Russian Federation and Russian development institutions. A series of closed meetings with representatives of RVC, the Skolkovo Foundation, RUSNANO, Sberbank, GBU Center for Innovative Development, GVA will be held on October 25 at the office of the Russian Venture Company.
On October 26 and 27, the participants of the visit will appear in the business program of the Open Innovations Forum as speakers in the panels of RVC JSC "The Future of Corporate Innovation: Dancing Elephants" and "Creating New Value through Corporate Venture Investments in a Rapidly Changing World". Within the framework of the Forum, the participants of the visit will present to potential Russian partners the directions and market niches of their funds, discuss the possibilities of co-investment and development of strategic projects, and also hope to look at promising technological developments and startups.
"It is very important for RVC to increase the integration of the Russian innovation ecosystem into the global one – this significantly increases the competitiveness of Russian companies and their chances of success in world markets. Corporate venture funds, being strategic divisions of the largest corporations, have important market expertise, can provide access to international markets, financing. In addition, now in Russia has difficulties with exiting venture projects, this prevents investors from earning, slows down the turnover of funds in the market. By integrating global corporate funds into our ecosystem, we provide additional opportunities for exits through acquisitions by foreign strategic partners," notes Georgy Gogolev, Director of the Communications Department of RVC.
"One of the tasks of GVA is to create bridges between the Russian innovation ecosystem and foreign markets. Given the difficult geopolitical situation between Russia and Western countries, we and our partners from Mawsonia had to make a lot of efforts to bring corporate venture capitalists of this level to Moscow," adds Zamir Shukhov, CEO of GVA (Global Venture Alliance). "In my opinion, the initiative of RVC and the willingness of our foreign colleagues to conduct a productive dialogue with Russian partners is the right step towards creating new forms of interaction."
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25.10.2016