The second Startup Huddle was held at the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The “Startup Huddle (SH)” is an international program, aimed at educating, developing, interacting and connecting entrepreneurial communities. It has been implemented around the world since 2016. In Russia, its administrator is the "Entrepreneurship Center” LLC, operating through an extensive partnership network. The Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry hosted this innovative endeavour for the second time. The event consisted of two stages. The first stage of the offered projects was from the MedTech company, the second - from the area of logistics and IT-technologies.
A pitch session was held. It habitually consists of short (up to 6 minutes) presentations by a start-up entrepreneur or a team, in which the discussion centers on a respective business startup and an outline of the main problems and requests for the expert community’s opinions. After that, for 20 minutes the experts, entrepreneurs, and investors provide feedback and advice on the next steps, offering solutions to problems, and sharing their experiences.
This time, the five projects were presented for discussion of experts, investors and entrepreneurs..
“HearthIn” is a t-shirt, with sensors, which allow receiving ECG data in addition to the standard functions. "A personal trainer and cardiologist in your pocket," - this is how its author, Mr. Alexey Vinogradov, described his product. The experts from the field of medicine asked the developer many questions about the availability of clinical trials of the sensors, about the degree of reliability of the obtained cardiogram.
Mr. Vinogradov admitted that this product does not represent a medical device, rather it should be considered as a game application. The main purpose of the project is to raise investments. Subsequently, as was states by Mr. Artyom Dalevich, the Vice President of the MCCI, the project was not quite relevant: "It is more effective to make such presentations during our investment sessions, which are attended by a large number of potential investors. The current session is an event, where one can get an assessment of the project, advice on diversification and promotion of an idea, or on setting up a business process”.
The second, project, “Mika”, produces contact lenses with augmented reality (AR). According to Mr. Vadim Bugakov, a representative of the developer’s company, today's augmented reality devices are large in size, have a small viewing angle, a short charge capacity and low resolution. The lens developed by the team will be able to solve these issues.
Currently, a laboratory prototype of the product has already been created, and by the end of the year it is planned to create a demo prototype, for which one million dollars must be raised. By 2027, it will launch the product on the market. Experts noted that it is very difficult to promote such long-term projects in our country, especially since the market of augmented reality is difficult to forecast.
Next, the RADLogics software system for automated processing of radiological images was presented. According to the company's representative , Mr. Andrei Miloserdov, the RADLogics is an artificial intelligence-based software platform for medical image analysis, which significantly increases the speed and accuracy of radiologists' work.
The company was established in Israel and is now localized in Russia. The complex has been tested at many hospitals around the world, including those used for COVID-19 diagnostics. The main purpose of the project is the maximum scaling of a business and entering new markets. The experts asked the company's representatives about the degree of error in the data processing results, and asked questions regarding what problems the project faces.
The second part of the meeting began with a presentation of the “BRAND NETWORK” project, which is a supply chain management system of logistics, based on blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies. The main focus is investment attraction, marketing, market promotion and being adapted to the international market.
Since the authors failed to disclose the essence of the project in detail, the experts had many questions about it. They came to the conclusion that a "marketplace for truckers" was somewhat misdirected and advised the developers to take a narrower view of the industry and develop it.
The presentations ended with the introduction of “Botman.one”, a visual application builder without programming, which allows applications to be created quickly and without involving programming. Two pilot projects have already been implemented with the VTB Bank, one of which was related to the automation of responses for the bank's clients' requests.
This program allows to relieve the call-centre and the department for handling requests by 30%. The range of companies that could potentially be involved in the project range from legal and leasing departments, factoring applications, insurance companies, banks, real estate agencies, etc.
At the end of the meeting, there was dialogue between the interested parties. The event was held both face to face and online, so the job seekers, who were able to attend the meeting in person, were able to communicate with the experts, get valuable advice and exchange reciprocal contacts.