Perfect Pitch: Group-IB prevails in the Entrepreneurship World Cup National Finals

Group-IB, an international company specialised in preventing cyberattacks, online fraud, and investigating high-tech crimes, which has recently opened Global HQ in Singapore, has won a prestigious global pitch competition — National Finals of the Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWC) that took place on 29 July 2019 at Skolkovo Technopark. Entrepreneurship World Cup is a global accelerator with over 100 000 entrepreneurs from 170 countries. Successful performance in the National Finals allowed Group-IB to secure a sweet spot in the EWC Global Finals, which will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on November 12, 2019.

Group-IB was selected for the National Finals shortlist along with other 12 top contestants chosen out of more than 100 applicants. In the National Finals in Skolkovo, all the participants delivered 4-minute pitches, each followed by 3-minute Q&A session. Aleksandr Lazarenko, Head of R&D at Group-IB, gave an overview of the company’s key technological development stages and talked about the expansion to international markets. Lazarenko, whose 4-minute winning pitch brought Group-IB first place in the National Finals and the ticket to the Entrepreneurship World Cup Global Finals, joined the company at the age of 19 to become a Head of R&D at the age of 22. The EWC selection committee particularly highlighted the company’s ecosystem which fosters entrepreneurial spirit, Group-IB has been creating over the course of 16 years.

Group-IB’s unique ecosystem which fosters internal entrepreneurship is an integral part of our company. Engineers with entrepreneurial mindset are encouraged to launch new projects and initiatives within the company, build their own teams using Group-IB’s resources. For me it’s extremely important to not only conduct complex investigations and create technologies trusted by the world’s biggest banks, financial organizations, and companies from various sectors, but also to train internal entrepreneurs capable of taking responsibility and running their divisions as separate business units.

Ilya Sachkov

CEO and Founder of Group-IB

As a National Finals winner, Group-IB was granted access to professional services and subscriptions worth USD 500 000 to further develop the company, a certificate to participate in Global Silicon Valley Labs trainings and other valuable prizes. Group-IB will now compete in the Entrepreneurship World Cup Global Finals which will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on November 12, 2019.

The company Motorika won the second place and two Skolkovo residents HemaCore and DRD shared the third place. The national winners were awarded by Shiv Vikram Khemka, Vice-Chairman of SUN Group. The EWC Russia National Finals are organised by MiSK Foundation (Saudi Arabia), The Global Education & Leadership Foundation (tGELF, India), and the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN), in partnership with the Skolkovo Foundation and the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo.