English-speaking undergraduates from all over the world are invited to participate in SumIT startup accelerator program held in St. Petersburg on August 10-29th. The startup camp is organized by the Business Incubator of ITMO University and is supported by the U.S.-Russia Foundation for Economic Advancement and the Rule of Law (EURECA Program).
SumIT program offers educational and cultural agenda, an opportunity to pitch your own project to real-world investors during the DemoDay, as well as accommodation on campus, and breakfast and lunches on weekdays. The participation fee is of Eur 300, and you can get a 10% discount by referring to GoalEurope. Find more details on the SumIT agenda in the leaflet or on their website. Students from the UCLA (USA) and Aalto University (Finland) are already in.
Elena Gavrilova, who is responsible for SumIT and is the deputy head of ITMO Business Incubator, to provide some names of venture capitalists and business angels who will be mentoring the startup accelerator. Check it out:
- Alexander Andreev, partner, Almaz Capital;
- Michael Averbakh, founder, iDeal Machine Accelerator, business angel;
- Sergey Fradkov, founder, iDeal Machine Accelerator and DynoPlex (was bought by Google), business angel;
- Ilya Antipov, founder RIS Ventures;
- Nikolay Mityushin, founder, ABRT Venture Fund;
- Alexander Shirmanov, R&D Director, Veeam Software;
- David Waroquier, Partner, Mangrove Capital Partners;
- Kendrick White, Founder, Marchmont Capital Partners;
- Jan-Erik Nyrovaara, Partner, Helsinki Ventures;
- Andrew Filev, Founder&CEO, Wrike;
- Vladimir Gurov, Founder, Virool;
- Jaakko Salminen, Chairman, Finnish Business Angels (FIBAN);
- Riku Asikainen, Head Coach, Startup Sauna.
Since 2012 SumIT has mentored 80 alumni projects which raised more than $3 billion in funding. Here are just a few success stories:
ResumUP, an online platform that allows users to create visual resumes, was named one of the most promising Russian startups.
AddReality, focusing on intelligent digital signage solutions, got Nike as one of their first clients during the accelerator,
Picture Manipulation Inspector, software for detecting manipulations in photo-reports, attracted $1 billion investment from the Internet Initiatives Fund and Flint Capital.
Smart Museum, an interactive museum guide, received $20,000 during SumIT and was funded $150,000 more via connections acquired during the program.
