CEO of Digital Future Oleksii Vitchenko has participated in the Unexpected Conference in Lviv on February 27, 2016.

It was the second master class by Oleksii for the last week. You can find the report on the event in Kyiv here (UKR).

Smart investors, smart entrepreneurs and everyone who is interested in the IT has gathered in Lviv on February 27. “Truth to be told, the organizers have gathered the right people in the right place,” says Oleksii, “the Conference was separated in four flows: smart people, smart money, and soft skills.”

Oleksii is an entrepreneur and a practitioner to boot, so there was no theory in the master class since the theory belongs to books.

“At the Conference people were asking loads of questions on our criteria and investments. People were asking for the advice on different aspects of the life of the startup. Of course, I could not answer every question during the master class, so I stayed after the event to chat with the crowd. I am pleased with the interest in this topic. However, not everyone understands what is exactly the smart money,” says Oleksii.

According to him, it is important that such events took place not only in Kyiv but also in the “capitals of outsource” – Kharkiv and Lviv.

“Lviv is the outsource center, where the programmers are generously paid. On the other hand, this is also a problem, since the people do not have the motivation to launch the startups,” continues Oleksii.

“Nowadays, in Poland, the seed investments are estimated in billions, and half of them can be allocated as grants,” the investor complaints, “Polish entrepreneurs, unlike ours, are spoiled. Therefore, they come here knowing that we can sort everything out. Poles are trying to buy our resources and talents.”

The events like the Unexpected Conference demonstrate that there is no need to dwell on outsource. “The more of these events there will be the more interesting startups we will get. It is our social responsibility, thus, our tours around the country telling the people what can be done to launch the startup,” Oleksii summed up.

Partner’s Event.

On March 26, LvivHackDay 2016, an event, which will gather more than 100 participants from all over Ukraine, will take place in Lviv.

The event is dedicated to the development of the IT projects.

Three sessions and some workshops will take place in the framework of the LifeHackDay 2016.

The program of the events and the tickets are available here.

Where: Hotel “Zhorzh” (1 Adama Mitskievicha Square, Lviv, Ukraine)

Organizers:

• FeelGoodLabs Business Accelerator;
• Innovation BOX Business Incubator.

More details are available here.

On Saturday, March 19, 2016, Lviv will hold the Startup Garden 2016 Conference.

The garden of startups will blossom for everyone who is willing to change and influence the world around us. It will blossom on two events:

• “Let’s start” – an event for the start-uppers;
• “Where is the money” – an event for the investors, which will feature the talks on the ideas and areas they believe in.

Of course, the Digital Future Team could not miss such an opportunity and will participate in this event.

More information on the Conference is here.

To register, please follow this link.

See you in Lviv!

The investment syndicate, which includes the Digital Future, participated in the round “B” of the Israeli-American startup YouAppi totaling $ 13.1 million.

YouAppi is a platform to attract the mobile audience, which analyzes the patterns of user behavior with other mobile applications, based on 25 various factors.

The deal involved Hawk Ventures, Global Brain, Click Ventures, Digital Future, Emery Capital, AltAir Capital, Glilot Capital Partners, 2B Angels and Flint Capital. Moreover, the round is more than three times bigger than the previous one.

“For us, this is a big step forward. As far as we know, no local company has participated in the round “B” yet. The project lies within our field of expertise. This excellent mobile marketing tool provides the opportunity to monetize the traffic for some applications and attract users for the others. Some of our portfolio companies use YouAppi,” says the CEO of Digital Future Oleksii Vitchenko.

YouAppi technology is based on the proprietary algorithms and can attract mobile users with the expected Lifetime Value (LTV), which is the total profit of the company received from a single client for all time working with him.

Global expansion and reorganization of YouAppi are the main destinations for the funds raised in the round “B”. Before raising this round, the startup proved to be effective and relevant. YouAppi is already working with Baidu, UC Union (Alibaba Mobile Business Group), Sungy Mobile, Apus, NewBorn Town, Kika, Bandai Namco and others.

1.5 billion global mobile profiles accessing 3,500 mobile apps and sites, including The New York Times, Pandora, EA, Orbitz, Zynga, Yandex, Wayfair, and Viber are registered on this platform.

On March 11-12, the second annual forum of innovative technologies InnoTech Ukraine will be held in Kyiv.

“The task of InnoTech Ukraine is to demonstrate the feasibility and availability of innovative technologies both in business and in everyday life,” the organizers said.

The first day will focus on the innovative development and implementation of business processes, including segments of education and medicine.

The second day is dedicated to startups and innovative projects. March 12 is devoted to the meetings with international and domestic investors, as well as several workshops.

Digital Future will participate in this event.

Detailed information is available on the website of the Forum.

Friends, we invite you to spend the first day of spring together with Digital Future!

On March 1, Roman Gold, managing partner of Israeli investment platform JSCapital will hold the workshop “Israel 2016: New Opportunities for the Investors and Startup-Entrepreneurs.”

Date: March 1, 2016
Time: 18:30
Where: Digital Future Co-working Space (4a Donska Street, Kyiv)
Fee: 150 UAH

During the workshop, we will talk about the trends of Israeli startup market:

• Strengthening of the role of the foreign money;
• A new generation of incubators;
• Dynamics of market niches;
• Export of the experience;
• Startup visas

The participation fee is 150 UAH. Registration is required to participate. Please click here for the registration.

Speaker: Roman Gold, managing partner of Israeli investment platform JSCapital.

On Saturday, February 27, 2016, IoT Conf UA Conference will be held in Kyiv.

For those who are involved in the Internet of Things and interested in modern technology, robotics, “smart home”, we recommend finding an opportunity to visit and IoT Conf UA.

“The purpose of the event is to build a community of people and companies interested in the IoT, provide a platform for the exchange of experience, dialogue and establish business contacts,” the organizers commented.

They see their audience as follows:

• Software developers;
• Technical specialists;
• Companies engaged in the development of IoT-solutions;
• Companies presenting their IoT solution (a development platform, systems of process automation, 3D printing, and so forth.);
• Companies engaged in learning.

More information is available here.

Digital Future is not standing aside and will participate in the event.

See you there!

On February 25, at 18:00 CEO of Digital Future Oleksii Vitchenko will hold a free master class “A successful case of using Smart Investments in the IT business.”

This master class will provide the answers to the questions like:

• When money, expertise, and recourses are converted into Smart-Money;
• In what areas startups often do not have enough expertise;
• What is the practical value of Networking and Bizdev for startups;
• How to get the systematic approach to marketing, sales and finances.

A few things why this master class will be useful.

Oleksii will talk about the things he has faced himself, out of his experience. His experience is more than ten years in digital and e-commerce, and in the western markets, where competition is very high.

Master class will be held in Digital Future Co-working space.

Registration is required to participate. You can register here.

You may have already heard about our idea to hold the AI Hackathon in Ukraine. In just a day since the first publication, Digital Future has received dozens of messages of interest in this mega-event.

We are happy to announce that we will hold the meet-up with everyone who will be involved in the organization of the AI Hackathon on March 3.

The main event is planned for May 14-15. The date, however, is a subject to change, so please watch for more announcements on our website.

The idea of the AI Hackathon belongs to the CEO of Digital Future Oleksii Vitchenko. “First of all, this is our investment (Digital Future invested 200,000 EUR in AI-project LifeTracker).

Secondly, the desire to direct our “outsourced brains” to the technology, and make the world’s first breakthrough in AI. Thirdly, the popularity of the AI around the world. And finally, we have some of the best programmers around the world, and therefore, who, if not us, can develop the best software in AI,” Oleksii explains his idea.

Answering the question on the expectations from the AI Hackathon, Oleksii responds concisely and succinctly, “products/startups/ideas/teams.”

Everyone is invited to participate. We would like to see the representatives from the investment sphere. In addition, we are happy to say that we have already received some promising feedbacks.

“I think in terms of Ukraine a whole, not only of my company. I am sure that AI Hackathon is a big step for Ukraine towards becoming the technological country, rather than remain “the outsourcing country,” says Oleksii.

The March meet-up will cover such questions:

• Structure of the mentoring group (at least one mentor from Digital Future);
• The jury (at least one member of jury should be from Digital Future);
• Rules and regulations;
• Project selection parameters;
• Team structure parameters;
• Milestones;
• Timing, terms, and conditions.

Please send your suggestions and proposal to Karina Kalina of Facebook, or by mail: [email protected].

For more information, please follow the updates on our website.

Digital Future will participate in the biggest IT event in Europe – Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Several conferences will take place in the framework of the Congress.

Startups from Brazilian accelerator StartupBootCamp will participate in the conference named 4YFN (Four Years From Now). Among them will be one of our portfolio project – LifeTracker. LifeTracker is the world’s first artificial intelligence designed to help plan and monitor life (you can read the interview with the creator Mikhail Nestor on Thinking Investor).

“Our fist motivation to participate at MWC is to provide the support four our portfolio company. The presence of the seed-investor on the presentation of this caliber provides a very positive impact,” says the leading investment manager of Digital Future Viktor Kompaneiets.

The second motivation is to develop the list of our contacts. An investor cannot stand still, and you need to expand the network of contacts constantly, to work with portfolio companies, to promote them on the international market, to prepare for the next round of financing, and to prepare the assets for sale. “This is a long process, you can spend years selling your company,” comments Viktor.

The third is the opportunity to evaluate the projects in regards to the trends, and, perhaps, pick up a project for investment, as an independent company or as part of a syndicate.

The fourth is to participate in specialized events for the investors. “A lot of people with the similar interests and which represent one industry will gather at the same place. There is a high probability that useful contacts will be made not only with representatives of the manufacturers (the biggest vendors of mobile devices and technologies will be present in Barcelona) but also with the market players,” predicts Viktor.

Finally, the fifth motivation is the opportunity to show yourself as the participant of this market.

There is an ambitious goal for this year – we will conquer Europe.

Colleagues,

Digital Future is planning to hold a Hackathon dedicated to Artificial Intelligence in May.

We would like to gather the experts from different sectors on this event, so we have created the special Facebook Group dedicated to this event. All the discussions will happen there, so please join, if you want to contribute to the AI Hackathon.

If you are up to being a mentor, a volunteer or just want to help organize this event, please write to Karina Kalina on Facebook or [email protected].

On February 27, one of the biggest IT Conferences, The Unexpected Forum will take place in Lviv.

Startups, investors, IT-corporations, outsourcers, developers, scientists, media, and everyone who deals with IT will be present there.

The Conference will work in four parallel flows:

• Smart Money;
• Workshops;
• Soft Skills;
• Smart People.

As you know, Smart Money is our field of expertise, because Digital Future provides Smart Money to the startups who are oriented on the Global Markets.

You will hear how to get the Smart Money from us from our CEO Oleksii Vitchenko on the Unexpected Forum.

Hurry up to register! The earlier, the cheaper. You can register at the website of the Conference.

See you there!