May 28, 2015 - The invite-only international investment conference Seed Forum Lviv 2015 organized by international fund Seed Forum Foundation and the center for innovation and entrepreneurship iHUB with the support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was held in Lviv for the first time.
About 80 people, among whom were representatives of investment and diplomatic circles, accelerators and incubators, founders of international and Ukrainian IT-companies, attended the conference: Nravo, N-iX, Kyivstar, Limelight Networks, Betaplace, Lviv Startup Depot Business Incubator, Lviv City Council, Okay Holding, Innovation BOX regional incubator, S2B-group, Seed Forum, Lviv Startup Club, Startup HUB Ukraine and others. The keynote speech was made by the President & CEO at Seed Forum Global Steinar Hoel Korsmo and the Board Director of Seed Forum Eastern Europe, Chairman and Co-founder of Seed Forum Ukraine Dimitri Podoliev. In addition, a special guest – Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy – also addressed the guests with a welcoming speech.
Dimitri Podoliev (left) and Steinar Hoel Korsmo (2nd right)
Seven startup teams from all over Ukraine presented their projects for the audience. Each team had only 5 minutes to present the project and 2 minutes to answer the questions. At the end of the official part, the participants and the guests of Seed Forum Lviv discussed the results of the conference during lunch.
Seed Forum Lviv 2015 startup projects:
uMuni is a market defining SaaS solution, which enables true energy management on city and enterprise level.
Wiseper is the set of services that are aimed to increase revenue for e-shops, by providing a fully personalization of content.
inLaw is a modern online service for a search of lawyers.
Bibi is to provide carpooling as competitive alternative to public transport for any local traveling purposes within the city boundaries. Technically that means оnline data search for the commuters in the real time and GPS en-route client’s navigation.
Instawash is an online booking service for carwashes.
Objective-C to Swift converter helps to save thousands of man-hours by automatically converting code blocks and whole projects into new Apple programming language.
Mobile Nurse is a useful application that keeps track of your course of treatment.
The second important part of Seed Forum Lviv 2015 was held in the hotel “George’s” restaurant in the evening. All guests were able to discuss the results of the conference, to establish business contacts and chat in an informal atmosphere.
The organizers’ team is grateful to the sponsors of the event - the software development company Digital Crafters, the international law firm Magnusson, and the Lviv Business School LvBS.
InVenture - the biggest investment portal of Ukraine dedicated to market private equity and venture capital was supporting the event as a general media partner.
Summary:
Seed Forum Foundation - is a global network of national not-for-profit foundations, founded in 2002 in Norway, which unites more than 24000 mentors and investors from 46 countries and 60 cities all around the world. Seed Forum helps young startup companies to find international partners and investors to promote their business. Seed Forum Lviv is a part of a global Seed Forum network, which was successfully held in Kyiv on April 28.
iHUB - is a network of innovation and entrepreneurship centers, founded on the initiative of an international organization Seed Forum Foundation in 2012. iHUB contributes to the development of young and innovative startups and is a full-fledged Norwegian-Ukrainian network of IT centers for entrepreneurs. iHUB is expanding its network actively in Ukraine: in the nearest plans for 2015 - to launch centers in Chernigov, Vinnitsa and Lvov, as well as to expand the iHUB network globally in Moldova and Georgia until 2016.
Digital Crafters is a software development company. “We have a rich experience and unique expertise in the development of technically sophisticated web applications for various business areas. We are focused on products for startups. We are experts in Ruby and Ruby on Rails and user-centered design. We love to explore modern technologies that open up new opportunities.
We practice agile methodologies and love Scrum, Kanban”.
Magnusson is an international law company, which provides a full range of legal services. One of the priorities of Magnusson is providing the support for IT industry. The firm was formed by a group of lawyers, specialized in different areas of law - intellectual property law, corporate law, litigation, - which carry out the support for projects in the sphere of high technologies. Magnusson’s specialists take part in national and international associations and networking for IT lawyers, including ItechLaw. "We provide comprehensive legal support in all areas of technology. Magnusson advises buyers and suppliers of software or services, cloud services, content, online services, hardware, etc. We are able to combine our resources to provide clients with effective legal decisions".
Lviv Business School (LvBS) integrates management of modern educational programs and the unique products based on the business development of the cultural component. Programs meet international standards and cover a wide range of business sectors. School implements an 18-month Key Executive MBA program for business owners who seek for personal growth and improvement, holds corporate programs of managerial development and professional training programs to help leaders and top managers to develop personal and professional skills and competences, and conducts consulting projects for organizational development. Lviv Business School annually holds an average of 90 events (conferences, seminars, and programs), which attracted more than 2130 participants. LvBS is one of the few examples of education in the business environment with a focus on values, such as respect for diversity, commitment to results, the promotion of personal development and respect for culture.
