(Source: http://gogodiet.ru/page/754)

The All-Russian competition of startups “GenerationS” has summed up the results of projects selection. The most popular sector was smart city technologies, and the majority of products already have their prototypes. This was told to “Lenta.ru” by the representatives of the Russian Venture Company (RVC), the organizer of the selection.

According to the words of the director of the Innovative Markets Department of RVC Gulnara Bikkulova, the selection of projects has demonstrated the trends that are important for the industry: startups are more and more often engaged in technologies that can change people for the better - for example, make the urban environment more liveable.

Another trend is that Moscow is rapidly giving way to regional technology centres. In 2014 about half of all applications for participation in the program received were from Moscow, whereas in 2015 the capital projects accounted for 16 percent of the applications inflow.

This year the number of the sectors of GenerationS for projects to apply for has expanded, and now there are seven of them: Aerospace, BiotechMed, Power & Energy, Oil & Gas, SmartCity, Telecom Idea, Robotics. Besides, IT-sector has disappeared from this list: the work with information technologies is no longer regarded as the defining characteristic by experts, and each project must select a sector where its product can find demand. 30-40 percent of the projects in each sector presented developments in the prototype stage, and about 10 percent can boast of the fact that they have started pilot production. This figure is even higher for Oil & Gas and SmartCity tracks - 15 and 18 percent, respectively. As Bikkulova noted, the fact that the project is able to turn its idea into a prototype is an important indicator for RVC and potential investors.

The partners of the competition include more than 20 corporations willing to allocate resources to work with startups and interact with them by the “open innovations” model: to use technological solutions of young teams, helping them to develop. “We hope that the way we will go through together with the selected corporations within the accelerator frame will be useful for other Russian companies” - the director of the Innovative Markets Department of RVC commented. Three winners of GenerationS will share the prize pool with the minimum amount of 5 million roubles.