How to raise money for your project: 6 tips for developers

1. Get the most out of social media

Start your search for investors from your page. Do not underestimate the theory of six handshakes: among the subscribers of your virtual friends there may well be people who want to support a promising project. Publish posts about your future product, ask for reposts and directly announce that you are looking for an investor. But do not go into too much detail: it is better to omit a detailed description of the mechanics of the application, site or game in order to protect yourself from stealing the idea. Additionally, you can search for groups, publics and chats for investors and authors of young projects. Perhaps communication there will also bear fruit.

2. Attend hackathons and other industry events

Championships, forums and festivals are great places for networking. There you can find a potential investor, and get advice from cool experts, and get to know other developers. Creating something great is much easier when there are reliable partners. The main thing is not to be afraid to start a conversation and boldly exchange contacts.

In addition, a hackathon is a way to prove yourself. Championships are often attended by representatives of large industry companies who can notice you. Therefore, after a successful performance, you can get investments or fit into a cool project. And finally, prizes for first places are usually cash. The amount won can be safely spent on creating or promoting a product. In order not to miss the championships, follow the schedule on "hackathons.rf».

3. Participate in grant competitions

On them, as well as on hackathons, you can get money without communicating with specific investors. It is enough to prepare a project, submit an application and wait for the decision of the commission. The amounts can be impressive: for example, the Russian Fund for the Development of Information Technologies issues grants for development in the amount of 20 to 500 million rubles, and projects that are assessed as particularly significant can count on billions.

Grants are not always a story about public funds. Sometimes corporations are involved in encouraging promising developments - for example, their own program There is at Yandex. And in February, VKontakte also started investing. The company launched a serviceVK Play Investmentsto help game makers for PCs, consoles and smartphones. In 2023, 300 million rubles were allocated for this task. "VK Play Investments" also promises to help with the development, search for partners and promotion.

It is not necessary to send an application for all open grants at once. First, study the conditions: often the organizers indicate priority areas in them. Suppose they write that IT solutions for industrial enterprises have an advantage. In this case, you should not go with the idea of ​​​​an application for daily accommodation booking. And also pay attention to what the grant can be spent on: after winning, you need to report on the implementation of the winnings.

4. Use crowdfunding

If your project solves the pains of many users at once, you can apply for financial support directly to them. Through crowdfunding platforms. When placing a project there, you need to not only indicate the exact purpose of the collection, the required amount and timing, but also think in advance about the bonuses that investors will receive, for example, the mention of the name on the site and in the credits (if we are talking about a video game) or early free access to product. In Russia, money for development can be raised, for example, through planeta.ru or Boomstarter.ru.

There are also crowdfunding and crowdlending. They contain bonuses for the person who invested in the project, will be more serious: in the first case - shares, a share in the company or a percentage of profits, in the second - a return on investment with an additional payment. You need to collect funds by crowdinvesting or crowdlending only through investment platforms that are in the registry Bank of Russia. Otherwise, the security of transfers cannot be guaranteed.

5. Show the project to venture investors or funds

They are constantly looking for young promising projects that have a serious chance to take off and become popular with millions of users. Venture investors are invested in the early stages, sometimes even at the idea stage. Usually they buy a stake in a new company, personally supervise the work and help lead the project to success. When he becomes popular and independent, they withdraw their capital - they sell a share in the business for an amount exceeding the down payment. At the same time, venture investors are ready for losses, and if the project fails, they will not have to return the money.

Only an innovative, technologically advanced project that will be useful or interesting to a large number of users can receive finance in this way. A good presentation will help to convince a fund or an independent investor of this. It needs to talk about the idea, the problem that the product will solve, the target audience, the amount needed for implementation, and the approximate payback time. You can’t do without specifics and numbers here - you need to carefully calculate everything, study statistics, assess the situation on the market and competitors.

But it’s also impossible to throw too much information: investors look at a lot of applications - on average leaves four minutes. Therefore, long and overloaded presentations can be closed without getting to the point. Limit yourself to 10-20 slides, structure the information using paragraphs, add graphics, illustrations. And if possible, give up the terminology - the investor may be far from IT, and he will not have time to search for the meaning of words.

6. Apply to a business incubator or business accelerator

The incubator is suitable for complete beginners - for example, if you already have a cool idea for an application or website, but so far it exists only in your head or in a presentation format. And the accelerator will help if the minimum viable prototype is ready and now you need to turn it into a finished product.

Both types of organizations offer authors support, but in different ways. In the first one, it is exclusively mentoring and educational: they give access to the technical base, help to draw up a marketing plan and find investors. In the second, financial support is already being connected. Accelerator investors invest materially in the project, and in exchange they receive a share in the capital and the opportunity to influence some internal processes.

Training and support programs at these organizations typically last several months and do not require payment. To get into these, you need submit application and prove that the project has a future and users cannot do without it. Most importantly, they are available in all regions of the country: you can see and choose the right one in the database Online Association of Accelerators and Business Incubators of Russia.