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In September, we re-launched Start Fellows, an initiative designed to support technology start-ups that was founded in 2011. The program's primary objective is to assist projects that utilize VK's potential in a way beneficial to people regardless of what the company deals with.
We offered support to projects already in progress that also had acquired an audience and created a model of monetization. The jury, which included our specialists responsible for products and development, assessed the relevance and scalability of ideas, their degree of integration with VK and the usefulness of projects.
During this initiative, the winners of Start Fellows were well-known companies, such as YouDo (personal assistants and freelancers service), Wheely (business taxi), Surfingbird (recommendations service), DonorSearch (blood donors network) and Sputnik (tour guide service).
This year, 327 applications were submitted for the grant, of which 67 reached the first stage of selection. After careful consideration, we are ready to name the projects that won this year's Start Fellows grant.

Max Pavlov·Head of Communities·4 Dec 2017
In September, we re-launched Start Fellows, an initiative designed to support technology start-up.., image #1

Winners

5 projects will receive 500,000 rubles each, the services of our partner company Selectel to the amount of 100,000 rubles, as well as 200,000 rubles worth of VK advertising along with our mentoring support.

  • iBurattino — A service for transferring goods to VK communities and keeping them up-to-date.
  • Therooms.io — A catalog of closed parties, musical festivals, lectures and exhibitions in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
  • Handsales — An aggregator aiding in the sale and purchase of handmade goods from VK communities.
  • DLVRY — A prepared CRM for food delivery and other online store services.
  • Albato — A service for integrating CRM, analytics and social networks without needing the assistance of a developer.

Second Place

Projects will receive support in the form of 100,000 rubles to use for promoting their product on VK as well as Selectel services up to 50,000 rubles.

  • Gamayun — An app for distributing materials on behalf of VK communities, which also supports attachments and auto-send.
  • Mobivik — An app for viewing, creating and editing wiki-pages.
  • Loyall — A platform for collecting and processing service quality grades.
  • VK App Constructor — An app constructor for VK communities.
  • Leafy — An app that allows bookmarking novels being read, mark "for later" interesting literature and create book collections to share with friends.

Congratulations to all winners! Next year we'll reopen the Start Fellows program and continue helping useful projects that make the world a better place.