Trianon Startups. French and Russian companies at the Pushkin Museum

4 February 2020

February 3rd, the Trianon Startups forum began its work in the Pushkin Museum: 30 French startups met with large Russian companies.

The Director of the Pushkin Museum, member of the Coordination Council of the Trianon Dialogue M. Loshak, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia A. Grushko, the French Ambassador to Russia P. Levy, the Co-chair of the Trianon Dialogue, Ambassador P. Morel, the Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs under the President of Russia, Member of the Coordination Council of the Trianon Dialogue B. Titov, the General Director of the ADV Group A. Pankov, the creator of the Trianon Startups project, member of the Trianon Coordination Council E. Chatelard all gave welcoming speeches to the audience of Russian and French businessmen.

In the framework of the forum, a press conference was held at TASS, during which the organizers spoke to the media about the project and other initiatives of the Trianon Dialogue.

On the Russian side, such companies as Metalloinvest, VTB Bank, Gazprombank, Rostec, Rosneft, Norilsk Nickel, Mercury, Lukoil-Engineering, Rosseti, Rosatom, Russian Railways, Severstal, Sberbank, Rosbank, Mail. ru Group, Superjob, VimpelCom, MTS StartUp Hub, Sistema Venture Capital participated in the event. The corporations invited to the meeting are partners of MGIMO’s Endowment.

Nearly a third of the French startups this year work in the green technology sector, which coincides with the Trianon Dialogue’s key topic for 2020 «Climate and Environment». A significant number of the attending startups operate in the field of fintech, cryptocurrencies, digitalization of retail, big data, smart city, and cloud technologies.

The forum comprised a large number of short, 20-minute meetings and ended with a tour of the exhibition of the exceptional British artist Thomas Gainsborough. On the second day of the forum, a business breakfast will be organized for participants representing investment and venture funds.

The event at the Pushkin Museum was the second Trianon startups meeting. The first one took place in April last year at the Palace of Versailles with French large corporations and Russian startups attending. Companies like Air France, Total, Renault, Orange, Air Liquide, SNCF, Thales, Société Générale, Pernod-Ricard were at the first event, during which 290 meetings were held and 15 contracts signed.

The Trianon Startups Forum is organized by the Trianon Dialogue Coordination Council, with the support of the Franco-Russian Chamber of Commerce, the Association of French Foreign Trade Advisers, La French Tech and Air France, Mazars and ADV Group.

Trianon Startups is the winner of the French Tech Foundation, which helps French startups work on new markets. MGIMO translators led by the Head of the French Language Department M. Ogorodov provided the guests of the event with linguistic support.