Startup Challenge at GoTech ARENA

Dmitry is a co-founder and Managing Partner at Runa and is also head of the board at IT-cluster Phystech, a large infrastructure project at MIPT — one of Europe’s leading universities. He currently holds board seats at NGINX, Jelastic, LinguaLeo, Ecwid, and Cellrox.

Dmitry’s MSc in Applied Maths and Physics at MIPT and strong technical background give him a deep understanding of cloud computing, hosted services, and virtualization, as well as financial, healthcare, and educational IT-technology. His MBA (cum laude) and 18 years of executive experience, which includes growing a business from zero to $75M and managing HR for a giant international telecom supplier across 7 countries, also makes him an excellent “hands-on” investor.

Marvin is a Partner at 500 Startups, a global Seed Venture Capital Firm & Startup Accelerator based in Silicon Valley. He invests in Digital Media, Enterprise SAAS, Marketplace, Fintech, Adtech, Digital Health, Internet of Things & Mobile startups across the globe. 

Formerly of Yahoo! Inc. (10.5 years), Marvin Liao has held roles in the various departments of Sales, Business Development, Ad Operations and Marketing & ran online marketing at a venture capital funded ecommerce start-up prior to that. He also serves on the boards/advisory boards of several internet advertising and ad technology companies. 

In addition, he is a Mentor for several Startup Accelerator programs in Europe, Asia, Israel and the US, helping guide startup teams with their sales, marketing and partner development efforts."

Alexander is an engineer by heart. He has had a long career in IT, engineering, and project management. In the 1990s, he had worked for large corporations, most notably for IBM, spending a greater part of his time in the United States and overseeing projects across in Japan, South Africa and Switzerland to name a few.

After that, he decided to spend some time nurturing his own ideas, and launched a couple of startups himself. He then served as the CEO and Managing Partner of the Eastern European branch of MySpace. Following that he was approached to run a big project for the Russian government, creating the startup and IT cluster Skolkovo. Today, as the General partner and Founder of Maxfield Capital he oversees worldwide operations for the venture fund.

Investment interest: East coast USA & Israel, Russia.

Alexander holds a MSc in Computer & Electrical Engineering and a PhD in Economics.

Michael Breidenbruecker is a serial entrepreneur, active angel investor and advisor, who founded companies such as Last.fm, RjDj and RAWR.

Living in the Austrian Alps, he is active as a Mentor and Investor in the London, Berlin or Vienna startup ecosystem, establishes new startups within his Speedinvest Studio or enjoys hiking or skiing with his family in the Austrian mountains in his free time.

Michael graduated with a Master's Degree in Communication and Media Studies with Summa Cum Laude and co-founded Last.fm Ltd. 2001 in London.

He managed  the company as CEO from 2002 until 2005. His approach in combining music discovery, online radio and social software was internationally highly acclaimed and brought the company to the attention of millions of consumers, global media and industry players.

Last.fm was acquired by CBS in 2007 for $280MN in an all-cash deal.

In 2008 Michael founded Reality Jockey Ltd. based in London, which published several highly innovative mobile applications such as “RjDj”, which became world-wide Top10 downloaded and awarded Apps.

Together with the multi-time Oscar Acadamy Award Winners Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan, Michael created the internationally awarded Mobile Apps “Inception” and “The Dark Knight rises” as a transmedia storytelling extension to the Hollywood Blockbuster Movies, featuring innovative usage of Location, Microphone and Sensor Data. Having a broad background in Music, Michael worked with Musical Acts, like AIR, Chemical Brothers and others on Mobile Music Experiences.

Michael is currently a Partner of Vienna based venture capital firm Speedinvest and also serves on a variety of boards, like e.g. Sutterlüty, Fraugster, Mikme and others. With 100Mn EUR under Management, Speedinvest is one of the leading Seed & Early-Stage Funds in Europe.

Michael combines his passion for launching startups and his entrepreneurial spirit with his love of the Austrian Alps as founder of Speedinvest Studio in Vorarlberg, Austria, where he helps Corporate Clients with an infrastructure to launch incubated StartUp Ideas and nurture their Intrapreneurship efforts. He is helping corporates, like Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) and SME Companies to create and launch StartUps, that are close to their Corporate DNA. In the case for ÖBB e.g. a unique inter-modal mobility and ticketing app, including Car-Sharing etc. or an IIoT Platform for a SME.

Jane Gilson is the Director of Large Customer Sales for the EMEA Emerging Markets Region (Africa, Israel, Turkey, MENA and Russia).

Previous to Google, Jane spent over a decade at Microsoft and was heavily involved in the Seattle start-up scene, including founding her own online education company. Jane, who is originally from the US, has spent the past several years working in Europe, having been based in Prague, Munich and Paris before moving to Dublin to work for Google.

Alexander Galitsky is a Managing Partner of Almaz Capital Partners, a venture fund with major offices in Portola Valley, CA, which is backed by Cisco Systems, EBRD and IFC, which he co-founded in 2008. Alexander is a well-known innovator, entrepreneur and investor in USA, Europe and Russia/CIS. Alexander serves as Member of the Skolkovo Foundation Board,

Member of Skoltech Board of Trustees.

Alexander was honored numerous times as the most influential person in the Russian IT and Internet industry by Forbes, best GP of 2013 by Venture Awards, EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Russia in 2013, was nominated for best venture capitalist of the last decade in Europe in 2012 by Investor AllStars and named "Technology Pioneer" at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2000.

Prior to Almaz, Alexander made a series of private successful investments. His past and current investments include: Parallels, Yandex (IPO), QIK (sold to Skype), Vyatta (sold to Brocade), Acumatica, Jelastic, NavMaps (sold to TeleAtlas), Acronis, SJLabs (sold to VocalTec), EverNote, GridGain, WikiMart, CarPrice, StarWind, PIQ, Good Data among others.

Prior to his investment career, he founded five successful high-tech companies, ELVIS+, TrustWorks Systems (sold to Hamsard), EzWIM (sold to TMT Ventures), ELVIS Telecom (sold to Telenor) and NPC ELVIS, all of which he led as CEO. He pioneered in WiFi and Virtual Private Network technologies and product development on the global market in partnership with Sun Microsystems and was a pioneer of the Russian Internet industry back in the 90s. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Alexander served as one of the top technical executives for the Soviet space industry, where he worked on the MIR space station and the Soviet “Star Wars” response.

He has over 30 patents for numerous inventions, including parallel processing, WiFi and VPN security technologies.

He received his PhD in Computer Science from joint authority of Defense Research Institute and MIPT and graduated from MIET from the physical science department.

An initiator behind the LETA Capital fund. The fund is investing into companies on late-seed or early-growth stage that are focused on innovations, new products, and services in IT.

LETA Capital was founded in 2012, today the fund has over 14 successful projects in the portfolio, including an international mobile application for sports 365Scores, a Russian developer of a line of autopilots RoboCV, a solution for remote car-managing Remoto and an international social alarm Wakie.

From 1999 to 2003 Aleksandr was employed by the publishing house Computerra and then by the RBK media-holding as a leading analyst. He was also a part of RBK IPO which was the first IT IPO and the first case of attracting local investment on the Russian market. Later he was a part of executing an M&A strategy by RBK.

In 2003 Aleksandr co-founded LETA that later was recognized as one of the top-50 IT companies in Russia. In 2005 he became the head of Russian branch of ESET - one of the top-20 developers in information security field. ESET Russia is working on business development in 11 countries and is currently one of the largest ESET partners. ESET Russia, part of the LETA group manages a distribution chain independently from ESET. In 2008 Aleksander formed the LETA holding and became its president. He invested in a number of successful IT startups that later became a part of the LETA Group.

Aleksandr Chachava graduated from the Moscow State University of Food production majoring in automated systems for information processing and management.

• Married, raising 2 kids
• visited over 50 countries, yet still, prefers a family weekend in a cottage near Moscow over any other type of holiday.
• Enjoys football, water polo, fast driving and cycling

Co-founder & managing partner, TMT Investments.

Graduated from the Moscow State Technological University and the Russian Finance Academy. Ph.D. in Economics.

Artem Iniutin is a co-founder of RBK and TMT Investments, focused on internet technologies, investment management, telecommunications, and media. 18 years of investment experience in 5 different countries. Overseen the launch of over 60 popular startups, among which are rbc.ru, cnews.ru, smotri.com, autonews.ru, qip.ru and more.

Since 2010 Artem is a co-founder and a managing partner of the TMT investment - a venture fund whose shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange, in the AIM sector.

The fund has invested in 44 startups, has a record of 8 exit-deals including those with YAhoo, AOL, Monsanto. Partnering with startups in USA, Israel, Eastern Europe and CIS. This fast-growing fund is investing into fast-growing internet-startups that are promising to turn into large international businesses.  

Alexey has been an investment professional since 2011 when he embarked on a career in venture industry as a Head of Prostor Capital. Today Prostor Capital is one of the four funds managed by iTech Capital investment company. In addition to that, Alexey combines the position of its Partner and a Managing director at iTech Capital. Among them there are leaders of the market segments: Dnevnik.ru,  Aviasales, Ticketland, iContext, Bitfury, etc. Alexey is actively developing venture industry in Russia, being a member of Market Council at RVC (Russian Venture Company) and Administrative Council at the Russian Venture Capital Association (RVCA).

Alexey graduated with a degree in Computer Sciences from the Bauman Moscow State Technical University. He studied venture investments at Berkley University HAAS Business School (USA, California).

Alexey is very keen on endurance sport, including marathon runner. He is an author of several publications on personal development.

20 years of experience investing in various industries on different stages. Alumni of the University of Edinburgh, certified financial analyst (CFA). Prior to venture industry, he was representing the interests of Russian shareholders of TNK-BP and was a part of investment board of Suleyman Kerimov.

Alexey Girin is the General Partner at Starta Capital and Accelerator.

He has 15 years of experience in audit and finance and 10 years in the venture capital industry.

His introduction to investment started in 1996 when he was the Chief Financial Officer for the Investment Company Dominanta. His success at Dominanta led to a new CFO role at FMGC where he stayed for several years.

As an Entrepreneur, Alexey was the Co-Founder and Partner in AFD Consulting. AFD is an audit and accounting firm. Advancing from AFD in 2004, he began his Angel Investing work. In this capacity, which he still serves, Alexey functioned as an advisor and fundraiser for innovators and venture capital entities.

In 2010, Alexey became the Co-Founder and General Partner of Starta Capital. Starta Capital’s portfolio now includes a number of deep tech startup companies.

In 2015, together with Ekaterina Dorozhkina, Starta Capital’s Managing Partner, they launched Starta Accelerator. Starta Accelerator is New York City-based program that aims to empower startups with Eastern European roots and frontier technology.

Alexey earned his Master in Economics from the Russian State University of Trade and Economics.

Head of IIDF’s Accelerator: 320+ investments in IT startups.

Co-founder of GoValley.ru — a «venture tourism» program in Silicon Valley and an accelerator program in the USA — TechMafia.

Business angel and managing partner of RedButton fund: $10M of conducted transactions.

Head of Sberbank-Technology in Yekaterinburg: from zero to 50+ employees in 6 months; successful implementation of the core IT-system in 1800 of the bank’s offices.

Advisor to the Minister of Economics of the Sverdlovsk Region.

Naumen: from 6 to 400+ employees and a billion rubles in revenue. Now — a shareholder and a member of the Board of Directors.

Petr Lukyanov is a managing partner at Phystech Ventures. 

He has 10 years of investing experience and worked for 8 years in venture capital industry. Petr co-founded Phystech Ventures in 2013. Phystech Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm with $50m AUM focused on technology companies in EnergyTech, Robotics, Industrial IoT. Phystech Ventures invests globally and has 20+ portfolio companies in Russia, US, Europe and Asia.

A Russian entrepreneur and private investor in management and industrial consulting, internet and information technologies.

Currently a managing partner of the Untitled Ventures - a seed fund with 24 projects in its portfolio, helping private investors to invest in Russian startups. The fund is in close partnership with the IIDF, the Skolkovo fund, RVK and the seed fund of Moscow administration.

Investment Director Maxfield Capital.

Alexei has over 7 years’ experience in venture capital. Prior to the advisory team Alexei was in charge for a deal flow and portfolio development at Allianz Investments and VEB.

Alexei also has entrepreneurial and software experience which was obtained during his occupation as a startup founder and a software engineer at Motorola. 

Alexei holds a MSc in Mathematics and a MSc in Corporate Finance.

Konstantin is Partner at Binomial Ventures, where he focuses on investing in early and mid-stage companies in fintech, cybersecurity and data.

With experience across three venture capital funds, he has invested in over forty businesses and held strategic roles with ten companies, which have raised over $100m with his support. As an angel investor, Konstantin actively invests in companies in the US, UK and Russia.

Dell EMC Software Development Center, Russia.

Slava Nesterov was born in Leningrad (now St.Petersburg). Slava was graduated from St.Petersburg State University (1983), has Ph.D (1989) and D.Sc. (1999) degrees in mathematics. He has more than 50 research publications.

Slava joined EMC in February 2008 as an Engineering Director of St.Petersburg Center, was nominated as a General Manager in April 2009. On September 7, 2015 EMC was acquired by Dell and the Development center became a part of Dell Corporation. Prior to joining EMC Slava worked for Motorola, in St.Petersburg Software development center in deferent management positions, most recently as a Senior Operations Manager. Slava has a significant experience in management of software development organizations, industrial development of software products and solutions. Also due to his many years work in multinational IT companies he became an expert in starting and developing distributed R&D projects.

Before 1998 Slava worked in leading research institutes of Academy of Sciences, held senior research fellow position. He was engaged in research work in the areas of computational mathematics and artificial intelligence.

In parallel with his work for EMC Slava participates in a number of professional activities, he is a member of Skolkovo Industrial Advisory board and an expert of IT cluster, he teaches students in St.Petersburg State University.

Chief Executive Officer, Reksoft.
Member of the Board, Reksoft.  
Member of the Board, Technoserv Consulting.

Alexander Egorov co-founded Reksoft in 1991 with two university friends. As CEO from the company’s inception, he oversaw the growth of the business from a small start-up to a professional software engineering services company with more than 350 employees worldwide.

With over 20 years’ experience leading the expert team at Reksoft, Alexander has unparalleled professional knowledge of the global software engineering and outsourcing business.

Alexander plays a leading role in advancing the Russian IT industry as a whole, as permanent board member and twice-elected chairman of the Russian Software Developers Association (RUSSOFT). He also serves as board member of Technoserv Consulting, one of Russia’s largest IT consulting firms.

Alexander holds an MBA degree from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Prior to August 2016 CEO of the Intel Software Ltd. - a resident of the Skolkovo Innovation Center.

In 1996 Irog have graduated from the Mathematics and Mechanics Department of St. Petersburg State University with a degree in mathematics at the Department of Statistical Modeling. From 1996 to 1999, he continued his postgraduate studies.

Igor started his career in Information Technologies in 1999, joining Elbrus-MCST as an engineer for testing a compact Java virtual machine and 2 months later he headed this group of developers. In late 2002, he took up the post of the head of the St. Petersburg branch of Elbrus-MCST, and then in June 2004, Igor headed the newly opened Intel research and development center in St. Petersburg.

From 2007 to 2012 he held the post of Director for Operations Management in Russia. The main responsibilities were to build and support effective coordination of business processes on the ground, such as creating a stable infrastructure and a supportive environment for the productive work of the company's employees.

Igor actively participates in the work of IT business associations to create a favorable climate for the development of the IT industry in Russia. From 2009 to 2011 he was the co-chairman of the IT committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in St. Petersburg and was awarded the "Best Committee of the Year" in 2011. From 2010 to 2012 he was a member of the executive committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in St. Petersburg and since 2011 has been actively involved in the board of RUSSOFT.

Igor is married and raising a daughter.

Dashkov Sergey, 25 years experience entrepreneur with good records, graduated Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, active member of Russian society of Business Angels, runs some charity projects.

Investing interests cover new perspective and technological spheres, including, inter alia, healthcare projects. Focused on seed or early A round of investments.

Born in Sverdlovsk and graduated from a school in Penza.

From 1982 to 1987 studied at the Moscow State University of Railway Engineering majoring in engineering.

From 1994 to 2009 was working for Buka where he was a founder and a member of the board of directors

From 2002 to 2004 studied at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography.

From 2004 to 2006 got his MBA.

In 2010 was awarded as a business angel of the year.

Chief investment manager FortRoss Ventures.