St. Petersburg hosted the finals of EnergyHUB, an annual student startup competition supported by Energotekhnohub Petersburg, Gazprom Neft, and St. Petersburg universities. Skoltech’s K-Plus team made it to the finals and won a prize from New Industry Ventures, and the Eco Energy team made the top 10 and received a special mention from the Energy Leaders investment community.
A total of 149 student startups from 44 universities from across Russia took part in EnergyHUB, and only the best 10 teams reached the finals, presenting underwater robots, biofuel technology, digital automation solutions, unmanned monitoring systems and other impressive projects.
“This year, EnergyHUB displays broader geographic coverage as regards its participants. The finalists presented promising and mature products of practical value that can help deal with technology challenges even in large energy companies. Since our accelerator triggers a surge in technology startups, as evidenced by the creation of three new companies in St. Petersburg after the first competition, we will continue to systematically support student entrepreneurship jointly with the city authorities and universities,” Andrey Vlasov, head of the Energotechnohub Petersburg project office, says.
The K-Plus team that reached the finals with its UPS potassium-ion battery project will receive a grant of 400,000 rubles from New Industry Ventures.
“For a month, we worked hard to prepare for the competition and received a wealth of valuable expert feedback that helped improve our project. Since we have only scientists on our team, we appreciated hearing advice from different experts regarding the business model and marketing aspects.,” Natalia Katorova, a Skoltech PhD student and product manager at K-Plus, notes.
“It was quite an intensive event, with the organizers doing their best to encourage communication between the participants and mentors, monitor the pitch sessions and incite expert feedback after each iteration,” Polina Morozova, a Skoltech PhD student, co-founder of K-Plus and a winner of the Russian Presidential scholarship, says.
The Eco Energy team, a developer of an automated container for high-efficiency conversion of organic waste into biogas, made the top 10 and received a special mention from the Energy Leaders investment community.
“It was a very useful experience. We had a lot of online meetings with trackers who helped us to finalize both the project and the presentation, but, most importantly, we have found potential partners and are already discussing possibilities for product piloting at their facilities,” Elvira Muratova, co-founder of Eco Energy and a 1st year PhD student at Skoltech, says.
Last year, the St. Petersburg startup, Powerplace, with its electric car fast charging system became winner of the first EnergyHUB competition. Several finalist teams raised funding and established their technology companies in St. Petersburg.
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