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The participants of the Open Innovations Forum in the Skolkovo Technopark will discuss breakthrough technologies and measures to support innovative entrepreneurs to stimulate the appearance of unicorns on the Russian market.

According to CB Insights at the beginning of September 2019, there were over 390 unicorns (companies whose capitalization exceeds $1 billion) in the world. Their total value is $1.2 trillion. Almost 50% of them are from the USA, 30% are from China, 15% are from India, Great Britain, South Korea, Germany, Indonesia and Singapore. There has been no companies from Russia in this list until 2019. OCSiAl, a manufacturer of graphene nanotubes and solutions based on them to improve the properties of materials (RUSNANO Portfolio Company), became the first.

The Russian innovative companies work hard to build extended ecosystems quickly and efficiently to gain the market leadership, including the area of technologies development and business models creation. To become a unicorn, a startup must offer the market a completely new product or service, while relying on global experience.

“A genuine innovative product basically has no competitors. It's not just about the unique advanced technologies. Companies of that kind live under different life principles compared to the rest. They do not need cost cutting programs or advertising. The time is their biggest enemy, that is, they fight against themselves and technological difficulties where no one can help them, because they are the first,” says OCSiAl President Yuri Koropachinsky

Session speakers of the “Unicorn Era. How to create a company with a $1 billion market cap” will discuss how to stimulate the appearance of unicorns in Russia, what successful practices of global companies can serve as an example for growing startups, and what unicorns can teach the market. The discussion will be presided by Anatoly Chubais, Chairman of the Board of RUSNANO.