Chernovetskyi Investment Group (CIG) is one of the largest investment companies in the CIS market, founded in 2013, with an investment potential of over $100 million.
CIG R&D LAB is an educational and scholarship programme of Chernovetskyi Investment Group aimed at motivating students, postgraduates and young scientists of higher education institutions to develop their research and commercialisation skills and develop mechanisms for implementing innovative projects.
Unlike typical venture capital funds on the market, whose main performance indicator is the number of investments, CIG focuses on the quality of each investment. CIG invests not other people’s money, but its own, and only when it is fully confident in the project’s prospects.
CIG’s mission is to create a new quality of life for future generations by implementing the most advanced investment projects.
CIG’s goal is to become a leading investment company, developing the economy of individual regions and the country as a whole.
The CIG R&D Lab project is being implemented within the framework of a memorandum between NTU “KPI” and CIG signed in August 2018.
The purpose of the cooperation between NTU “KhPI” and CIG is to create a mechanism for motivating students, postgraduates, and young scientists of the university to conduct scientific and innovative research, gain skills in commercialising ideas and developments, and develop mechanisms for implementing innovative projects.
On behalf of CIG, the Memorandum was signed by its managing partner Volodymyr Kryvko, and on behalf of the university by the rector of NTU “KhPI” Yevhen Sokol.
The event was also attended by representatives of KhPI: Vice-Rectors Andriy Marchenko and Ruslan Migushchenko, Head of the Research Department Georgiy Lisachuk, his deputy Ruslan Kryvobok, and Academic Secretary of the University Oleksandr Zakovorotnyi.
The memorandum stipulates that Chernovetskyi Investment Group will launch a programme of scholarships and mentoring support for KhPI inventors and scientists who pass the selection committee. In turn, NTU “KPI” should provide administrative and methodological implementation of the project at the university; create a commission (including representatives of CIG) to select projects; prepare the necessary documentation for the payment of scholarships from CIG to participants, as well as report on the stages of implementation of the participants’ projects. After that, the final selection among the participants will take place. The winner will receive investments for project development.
Young scientists and students of the Polytechnic took part in the CIG programme and presented their start-ups to experts from NTU “KhPI” and Chernovetskyi Investment Group (CIG).
According to the results of the first season of the educational and scholarship programme CIG R&D Lab from Chernovetskyi Investment Group (CIG), the winners from NTU “KhPI” were the following start-up projects: “Innovative project: development of technology for the production of luminescent paving slabs” and “Reconstruction and modernisation of the heat and power sector”.
The winners of the second season are “Elomia”, an artificial intelligence chatbot psychologist, and “Space Ceramic”, a technology for the production of luxury facing bricks and ceramic tiles with a decorative metal coating.
The winners of the third season are “WeLight”, a wireless technology for long-distance energy transmission with low losses, and “Opty team”, an ozone generator for disinfecting surfaces and objects.
Among the best of the fourth season: TER-SAS, a development that solves the problem of disposal of sulphuric acid wastewater; Pretty Ukraine, a mobile application for children about the history of Ukraine with gamification elements; HuGP, a technology that will help switch from non-environmentally friendly polymeric packaging materials to environmentally friendly ones.
The best startups of the fifth season of CIG R&D LAB:
- service that allows you to track the shelf life of food and ready-to-eat meals in the fridge;
- hydrogel patches for the administration of drugs into the human body – the winner of the season;
- smart home system with a new encryption system.
In the sixth season of the CIG R&D LAB programme, three teams with the best ideas were awarded scholarships:
– BrownC-Rec – a method of remediation of soils contaminated by heavy metals and radionuclides as a result of military operations.
– MineGuard is an advanced mine detection system that solves the critical problem of detecting explosive devices in the de-occupied territories. The integrated system processes data from three sources: a thermal imager, a conventional camera and a ferromagnetic detector.
– Prominchik is a highly mobile photovoltaic power supply system for emergency situations.
It should be noted that in this particular academic year, a record number of start-ups were submitted to the CIG competition from KhPI – 47 works.