GS Venture to invest 50 million rubles in the IoT project

On June 3, 2015, the All-Russian competition “Internet of Things – IT Challenge” organized by the Skolkovo Foundation with the support of the GS Group investment and industry holding company ended. Two winners in the categories “Solutions for Smart Homes” and “Solutions for wearable electronics” received prizes from GS Group. The GS Group corporate venture fund – GS Venture – showed great interest in the third project and signed a memorandum of intent to cooperate with its team in the field of mass production of products within the Technopolis GS innovation cluster.

The award ceremony took place at the Startup Village – Russia’s largest start-up conference of entrepreneurs and innovators. The GS Group holding company presented prizes for two projects that were selected together with an expert jury made up by the Skolkovo Foundation. The winner of a special category “Solutions for Smart Homes” is a project by Tradematic, LLC which is an adaptive lighting control system called SVET. Oriense Company – a developer of high-tech devices that provide better space orientation for the visually challenged – was awarded a prize in the special category “Solutions for wearable electronics.”

The GS Venture corporate venture fund singled out a project of a non-invasive non-cuff blood pressure monitor called DokaSens, which was developed by the FINPROM-RESURS Industrial Group, LLC. This startup was not included in the short-list of major nominations, but received a special prize from GS Group as the most promising project in terms of implementation on the basis of enterprises of the Technopolis GS innovation cluster in the town of Gusev, Kaliningrad region, Russia. Head of GS Venture, Sergey Filimonov signed a memorandum of intent to cooperate with the startup team. According to the terms of the preliminary agreement, mass production of DokaSens blood pressure monitors will be organized within Technopolis GS. The fund intends to invest 50 million rubles for the project implementation.

“Internet of Things is an actively developing global trend, and the GS Group holding company is ready to become a prospective partner for the innovative projects within this field. The competition organized by the Skolkovo Foundation is an excellent opportunity to study proposals of innovators and to evaluate the outlook of the Russian market in the IoT in general. DokaSens project is the first startup with production to be first realized in the Technopolis GS innovation cluster. We do believe that it will be a successful experience and it will give additional incentive for development of similar projects,” – says Sergey Filimonov, Head of the GS Venture corporate venture fund.

During the Startup Village conference Sergey Filimonov also took part in a round table discussion called “Internet of things: myths and facts,” where he unveiled the peculiarities of interaction between innovative business and the GS Venture corporate venture fund.

Technology startup authors, representatives of engineering companies and members of the scientific community gathered to take part in the first major competition of innovative projects “Internet of things – IT Challenge.” The event became a platform to bring together Russian innovators and investors. The GS Group holding company was the competition key partner and sponsor.