Venture capital investment has become the first topic of intellectual meetings in the new format "Nowhere except Skolkovo", which will be regularly held by the Foundation. The first speaker in the Skolkovo Technopark was the hereditary American venture capitalist, multimillionaire, Tim Draper.
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The meeting was also attended by Alexander Galitsky, the managing partner of the investment fund "Almaz Capital", who after the teleconference commented on Tim Draper’s presentation, he also spoke about the specifics of venture capital in Russia and answered questions, addressed by the participants of the intellectual meeting. Irina Ivanova, the representative of the Section of innovation and investment of the Moscow Stock Exchange answered several questions.
Tim Draper is known in the global environment of startups and investors by the fact that he is a hereditary venture investor. His grandfather was the first professional venture capitalist on the west coast of the U.S.A., he established Gaiter & Anderson Company in 1958.
His father, William Draper, is considered the founder of venture capital. He invested in such famous companies as Apollo Computer (later was acquired by Hewlett Packard), among his other projects are: Dionex, Integrated Genetics, Quantum, Qume (I.T.T.), Activision (Mediagenic), Xidex (acquired by Eastman Kodak), Measurex, Hybritech (acquired by Eli Lilly), and others.
T. Draper’s video lecture and conversation with A. Galitsky was addressed to those, who create or plan to create their own startups and plan to attract investments, for business angels and mentors, who want to better understand the global venture capital market.
“I like to create venture businesses around the world; we already have 30 offices around the world. We also have partners in Russia, here we tried several times to create a venture capital fund, I think that Russia is just beginning to open up and is trying to attract venture capitalists.”
- Tim Draper.
The main trend that will rule the world of venture investment is the colossal rate of change.
"Every 18 months there is a new platform where new ideas and entrepreneurs can come together. And I think that changes will happen faster and faster."
Draper also mentioned Moore's Law, according to which in some 15 years, we shall witness great progress, which will be developing in many directions.
"I think that soon we shall be able, for example, by simply concentrating on something, to send our thoughts around the world. Perhaps we will colonize Mars; there will be a major breakthrough in medicine. Perhaps, we shall learn to communicate with animals."
Rapid technological changes lead to tectonic shifts in the venture business, in particular due to the rapid growth in the number of business incubators, various accelerators of startups. This, according to Mr. Draper, creates opportunities for expanding access to venture capital.
Mr. Draper also said that his funds are most interested in three types of innovations: companies that can change the nature of something that already exists, for example, the nature of e-mail. For example, Facebook has changed the nature of human communications:
"Once I said to my son: Why are you sitting at home, go play with your friends outside, and he replied – I am already playing, and showed me that he is with his friends on Facebook. So we see how Facebook has changed our view of life in our yard, and next door."
We also believe that the government should change, the whole system of interaction with the public, the government is vying for us. This is also happening in Russia.
"For example, I saw that Dmitry Medvedev visited Silicon Valley, he talked there, attracting people to come to Russia." Governments should change, "adapting to a more competitive world."
"And, of course, we are interested, and shall always be interested in smart business models and big breakthroughs," said Tim Draper.
The online store Amazon.com, which operates without warehouses and stock, was brought up as an example of a successful model. And as a breakthrough technology he mentioned the private aerospace company Space X, which, according to him, was able to create technology for bringing spacecraft into the orbit, which is five times more economical than NASA.
Tim Draper invited all the innovators, who are 18-24 years old, to attend seminars at his new school in Silicon Valley, which he had just created, and which will start in February of the following year. After that, he answered a series of questions, addressed from the audience of the videoconference.
Alexander Galitsky, commenting on the content of Tim Draper’s speech said that now venture capital, as well as the whole financial system, is going through a difficult phase of adjustment, which is called "Finance 2.0".
Some of the startupers, of course, could not resist asking Alexander Galitsky about their personal business, they wanted to find out their prospects, for example, a girl who invented a special mask for facial skin care: