Russia’s Top Startups Meet at Digital Business Space in Moscow

G8, an open discussion club set up by the Moscow Agency of Innovations in partnership with the Singapore-based investment holding Altergate, will greet investors and startup founders at its sixth weekly gathering at the Digital Business Space on November 7.

“We have quite a diverse audience at these meetings: from representatives of corporations and banks to business angels and venture investors,” says Alexey Parabuchev, CEO at the Moscow Agency of Innovations. “Support coming from the government can take different shapes: if we help to break the ice between the participants of the dialogue, it means we did our job well.”

Among the topics discussed at G8 are business accelerators, crowd technologies, fintech and decentralized finance, and smart cities.

Artificial intelligence was the subject of the club’s latest meeting, which took place last Thursday and was headlined by PwC. Of particular interest for the audience was the reason why AI tends to get a rather negative representation in film and the media. According to a PwC study, 63% of respondents believe that AI will help the society solve some of its complex problems, while 59% think that AI will enable many people to improve the quality of their lives.

The study also indicates that by 2030 AI-driven product improvements will account for 45% of economic growth. AI will contribute to greater product diversification, personalization, and affordability.

A successful example of AI in action is Gero.ai, a Russian startup that has applied physical and mathematical modeling to the analysis of aging. The company is working hard to identify the markers of aging. Among the startup’s achievements is an algorithm for calculating the risks of death and age-related diseases, such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or cancer. Thanks to Gero.ai, these risks can be now assessed with the help of a mobile app.

The upcoming G8 meeting will be dedicated to virtual and augmented reality technologies and the potential for their application in various areas. Future investors will meet with some of Russia’s top VR/AR startups and listen to colleagues who have already funded similar projects.