Russia hosts largest blockchain, fintech hackathon backed by Life-SREDA VC

The winners of InspiRUSSIA Hackathon, team White money pose for a photo

By Manesha Pereira

September 25, 2016

The WhiteMoney project, a system of payments between legal entities based on the distributed blockchain network, emerged as a winner in InspiRussia hackathon – touted as the largest fintech event in the country.

InspiRussia is a continuation of InspirAsia established by Life.SREDA VC,  a Singapore-based fintech-focussed venture capital fund. The event held at the Innopolis University was also backed by Tatfondbank, Sberbank (Sberbank Tech), Microsoft and QIWI.

The fintech-focussed event featured developments in sectors such as online debt transactions, payment processing technologies, blockchain based smart contracts, payments with no intermediary banks, communication using bots, micropayments using bots amongst others.

The 300 global participants, ranging from as young as 7 years old to 53 years old, were given 24 hours to assemble a team and create working prototypes. The teams then made a three-minute presentation in front of a jury.

Maxim Avdeyev, CEO of the InspiRUSSIA accelerator said, “It is easier to create projects out of the bounds of the corporation”

Ramil Nasyrov, First Deputy Chairman of the Board of Tatfondbank, PJSC added, “We will try to support the hackathon participants in every possible way; we are ready to integrate the best ideas into the bank right “after graduation”.

Life.SREDA VC, founded four years ago, remains one of the world’s first funds to have an exclusive focus on Fintech. The fund has also invested in more than 20 international start-ups including Simple, Moven, SumUp, Rocketbank.

Back in April 2016, the fund also launched an independent “Banking on Blockchain Fund” with a capital of $50 million to target innovations in blockchain technology in businesses throughout Europe and Asia.

Also Read:

Fintech VC Life.SREDA launches ‘Banking on Blockchain’ fund, targets corpus of over $100m
Fintech VC Life.SREDA launches co-working space in Singapore
Mobile point of sale venture Softpay gets $1m Series A from fintech VC Life.SREDA

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In Singapore, we are looking to double our reporting team by this year-end to comprehensively cover the fast-moving world of funded startups and VC, PE & M&A deals. We want reporters who can tell our readers what is really happening in these sectors and why it matters to markets, companies and consumers. The ability to write precisely and urgently is crucial for these roles. Ideal candidates must have to ability to work in a collaborative, dynamic, and fast-changing environment. We want our new hires to be digitally savvy and ready to experiment with new forms of storytelling. Most importantly, we are looking for hard-hitting reporters who work well in a team. Collaboration and collegiality are a must.

Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).

Following vacancies can be applied for (only in Singapore).   

  • A reporter to track companies/startups that have raised private capital, and have the potential to become unicorns. SEA currently has over 40 companies with a valuation of over $100 million and under $1 billion.
  • A reporter who can get behind the scenes and reveal how funding rounds are put together, or why they’ve failed to materialise. She/he in this role will largely focus on long-format stories. 
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