On April 23, Minsk witnessed an unprecedented event: for the first time IE Venture Day, currently held in 14 countries around the globe, took place in Eastern Europe. 10 best startups, carefully picked among more than 250 businesses from 10 countries, received a chance to pitch their startup ideas to leading venture capitalists and angel investors at the event.
The jury that included Paris de l’Etraz, Director of IE Venture Lab, as well as two IE alumni and successful entrepreneurs – Tania Marinich and David Fogel – among others, chose SplitMetrics, a Belarusian startup that provides a Free a/b testing tool for App Store and Google Play. The winner will now present their startup idea at the IE Venture Day in Madrid.
Two runner ups – Avox from Ukraine and Taxistartup from Belarus – received a scholarship for one of IE programs and an invitation to join the acceleration program at IE Business School, as well as consulting support from Deloitte respectively.
But it was not just about the startup competition. IE Venture Day gathered some of the most successful entrepreneurs, established managers and startup gurus, such as Mike Butcher (TechCrunch), Gary Stewart (Wayra UK), Arkadiy Dobkin (EPAM), Alexander Galitsky (Almaz Capital) and many others for a series of workshops, master classes and panel discussions.
There was also a Tyba cofounder Eiso Kant at the conference, who shared their truly impressive success story. Tyba is the most successful startup that was born in IE Business School, thanks to the IE Venture Day raised 1 mln Euro and became one of the leading recruiting platforms in the world.
The large conference room where the event was held was overfilled and there was a long waiting list some two months before the event begin.
In other words, also in Minsk, IE Venture Day lived up to its promise to be a unique platform for aspiring startups, experienced entrepreneurs, thought-leaders and successful investors that helps bootstrap new businesses. Â
The next IE Venture Day of Eastern Europe and Central Asia will be held in Azerbaijan.
The IE CIS team would like to thank Paris de l’Etraz, Director of IE Venture Lab, as well as our wonderful alumni – Tania Marinich, David Fogel, Eiso Kant,  Natalya Corobco and Oksana Hoshva for making this event such a huge success!
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