Smart$Money is a unique program which informes, educates and prepares foreign business angels and VCs for their future investments in IT startups. Smart$Money enables them to exchange knowledge and experience as well as share, inspire and connect with each other.

Program moderator Pemo Theodore and Startup Monthly team made it a reality.

40+ participants, keynotes, and panelists (among them Steve Blank, Robert Scoble, Buddy L. Arnheim, Christine Herron, Jeff Pulver, Bill Reichert, Greg Kidd, Brant Cooper and more key players in Venture Capital ecosystem) learned about foreign and domestic angel and VC investments, deal-structure, market trends, and the Silicon Valley ecosystem. The participants got connected to leading investors in Silicon Valley, visited successful startups, and got acquainted with various accelerator programs. During the 4-day program, participants visited Facebook, Microsoft, Stanford University and other Silicon Valley companies' offices. Agenda also included keynotes, roundtable discussions, networking events and pitch sessions (5 companies from Startup Monthly Accelerator presented their products to investors).

Each day had special keynotes, themes, mentors and speakers: Ecosystem Day, Angels Day, VCs Day, Investment Day.
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Russian Innovation Week Conference brought together leading startup entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and successful business leaders from the U.S. and Russia to mingle, connect, learn and discover opportunities for partnerships. 

Russian Innovation Week mission was to showcase the Russian Innovation and initiatives to foster innovation in Russia in order to create new partnerships with key players in Silicon Valley ecosystem.

Yuri Rabinovich and Vadim Slavin (StartupMonthly Founders) met with the main guests,  Anatoly Chubais, Rusnano, Igor Agamirzian, RVC and Dmitry Akhanov, Rusnano USA and started discussing potential cooperation with SKOLKOVO, RVC and Rusnano.

StartupMonthly moderated the pitch session with 30 companies from Russia:
Clean Tech & Energy:
Optogan, Infra Technologies,  ASLM/Empire Magnetics, Profotech, Advenira Enterprises Inc, Eos Energy Storage, LED Microsensor NT, ItN. 
Life Sciences: 
BBU Pharmaceuticals LLC, NPTpharma LLC, BiOptix Diagnostics, Panacela Inc, Bazelevs, Incuron, Sentiens LLC, CardioWave.
IT:
Balakam, iBuiidApp, Cyscom Ltd, Kuznech, 3DBIN, Penxy, Kernel Corp LLC, Auriga, ISS Art Ltd, Magru, AstroSoft, i-Free Innovations, Novosti MediaLab.
VCs: 
Rusnano Capital.

Russian Innovation Week organizers: RUSNANO, RVC, Skolkovo Foundation.
RUSNANO is a $10 billion state-backed fund based in Russia. It was founded in 2007 with an investment focus on late-stage venture capital and private equity deals in nanotechnologies. RUSNANO invests in clean energy and energy efficiency, the life sciences, medical devices, the semiconductor space and advanced materials.

RVC is a government fund of funds that channels public incentives to venture capitalists and support to the hi-tech sector. RVC was founded by the Russian government in 2006 to ensure faster development of an efficient and globally competitive innovation system and venture capital industry in Russia.

The Skolkovo Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to accelerate the transformation of Russia into an innovation-based economy through strategic partnerships with leading scientists and innovators around the world. 

Source http://riw-sv.com

By Amy Kwan

StartupMonthly had a great Demo Day on Thursday, June 21! Teams presented their pitches and received feedback from 12 mentors and investors.  When you only have 5 minutes to capture your audience’s attention, to make an impression, and communicate your business plan - you need to make sure your pitch is spot on.  There are plenty of tips out there on how to give a great pitch…here are some of our favorites:

1) Be Concise and Clear
No one wants to hear you ramble on forever about how you tested your code.  You should be able to tell your story in less than 1 minute.