On the 4th and 5th of December a first international startup conference Startup AddVenture was held in the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. One of the conference co-organizers is Happy Farm business accelerator. Over 2,000 participants from 28 different countries have attended the event over the two-day period. More than 80 startups, business incubators, IT companies from the CIS, Eastern Europe, Israel and Turkey presented themselves at the Expo Zone.
The rock stars of the startup industry, Dave McClure, the founder and managing partner of the largest seed fund and one of the largest startup accelerators of the US, 500 Startups, who has invested in over 600 companies together with Adeo Ressi, founder of The Founder Institute were the key speakers of the conference. 40 successful entrepreneurs and investors representing the leading VC funds, accelerators, IT companies of the US, Europe and the CIS have also shared their knowledge and experience with the audience.
The programme of the conference consisted of panel discussions, presentations and interactive workshops on the leading topics of the startup industry: mobile, e-commerce, growth hacking, pitching, design, fintech.
Best companies of Russia, Ukraine and the US like Yandex, Skolkovo IT Cluster, FIDOBANK, Kaspersky Lab, E&Y, PayPal, Avarla, Bionic Hill and EastLabs have partnered with Startup AddVenture.
1+1 Media, a leading Ukrainian media holding, was the main media partner of our conference. Among all of our media partners we have over 60 from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova, Romania, Poland, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine.
Startup Competition finale was held at on the 5th of December. More than 350 projects participated and only 10 finalists from Italy, Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Spain and the United Kingdom were chosen. All of them pitched their startup at a boxing ring in front of an investor jury. The finalists have all undergone intensive training at Happy Farm Business Accelerator. PlayCanvas, a startup from Britain was named the best one. The winner has received a real boxing champion’s belt and an investment of €25,000. Ukrainian startup LeadScanner, the runner-up of the battle, has also been invested in, in the amount of $25,000.
A closed business dinner for investors and the representatives of the top Ukrainian banks was also held as a part of the conference, supported by Kaspersky Lab. All of the speakers and investors have also taken part in a tour of innovation companies of Kyiv on the 6th of December – Kyiv City Open Door. They have visited Happy Farm, Modna Kasta, Terrasoft, Invisible CRM and Avarla. Kyiv City State Administration has also supported this business tour.
Next Startup AddVenture conference will be held on the 3rd and 4th of December, 2014.