Corporate cloud provider Cloud4Y has allocated a budget of 30 million rubles for investing in startups since 2019. Any company at an early development stage that would be most useful to Cloud4Y's client base can apply for help.

"We decided to use the Western approach of investing in startups - to allocate a specific amount for the development of the project, without requiring a share in the capital and return of funds. The total investment budget was set at 30 million roubles, with a maximum of 1 million roubles per company. It was also decided that cooperation will be conducted not only with Russian, but also with foreign startups that can offer a useful product to our clients and partners," Cloud4Y CEO Nikolai Fokin said, specifying that the investment program was launched in 2019.

Cloud4Y's investment program is aimed at accelerating the development of startups that are in the growth stage. To this end, the company provides both information resources for business startup, product creation, sales launch, and the opportunity to work in the already established ecosystem of Cloud4Y partners and customers. Additionally, training is provided for program participants for more effective use of cloud infrastructure.

A company applying for participation in the investment program is required to meet a number of minimum conditions:

• An innovative technical solution that can help Cloud4Y customers in their digital transformation;
• is no older than 3 years;
• is not owned by the state;
• total annual income of less than 30 million rubles.

Interim results

During the program Cloud4Y allocated grants totaling to 1 million rubles for the use of cloud infrastructure of the company. The organization has already used some new solutions to develop its own services and to improve the quality of service for its clients.

The founders of the startups participating in the program noted the quick consideration of applications and real support from the cloud provider. The capacities provided by Cloud4Y accelerate project launch, helping to organize R&D, improve service reliability and reduce IT infrastructure costs. Virtually unlimited resources and high quality cloud services have simplified market entry.

"Cloud solutions are a rapidly developing trend that is penetrating all spheres of human activity. Medicine, science, design, finance, sports - more and more companies are choosing the cloud. Our program was launched to support really interesting start-ups that can bring real value not only to our clients, but to society as a whole. When selecting startups, we evaluated first and foremost their usefulness and relevance, as well as the need for our services. In other words, it was important to make sure that moving to the cloud would have a tangible effect for the company," stressed CEO Fokin.

The startup Fonemica was one of the first companies with which Cloud4Y signed a contract. It is the only company in Russia engaged in speech recognition technologies and work with voice data - it develops technologies of speech recognition and synthesis, speech analytics, voice robots, develops the sphere of moderation of audio and video streams online and offline, offering business analytics and hardware solutions based on artificial intelligence. As of 2019, Fonemica is a member of the Association of Artificial Intelligence Development Laboratories and is also included in the National Strategy for the Support and Development of Artificial Intelligence in the Russian Federation.

Within a month, the Fonemica team deployed on the VMware platform a cloud infrastructure model of its own services, configured according to individual parameters under its own administration. During the implementation phase, Cloud4Y also provided Fonemica with GPU cloud computing.

Cloud technology has become a powerful tool for the Russian startup, helping it to test and implement new ideas in its product, to offer customers more flexible, customizable and scalable services. Another advantage of participating in the Cloud4Y investment program was the understanding of the startup's real needs in computer infrastructure and the possibility of building long-term IT budgets.

About the Company

Flex is the owner of Cloud4Y brand which has been operating in the cloud services market since 2009. At the moment Cloud4Y - one of the leading leaders in Russia, which create secure and high-tech cloud services.

The company's goal is to enable customers to improve the efficiency of business management. Cloud4Y assists enterprises of different types and sizes in creating a reliable and confidential IT-infrastructure at an affordable price. To date, the company is one of the leading providers of IaaS and SaaS services in Russia.

At the moment, more than 2 thousand enterprises all over the world have become clients of the company, including: "Rosneft", "Kinomax", Kraft Heinz, Boehringer Ingelheim, Positive Technologies, DomClik and others. At the same time, the Company already has a significant list of foreign clients and partners as well, actively developing in the markets of the USA, Europe and countries of the MENA region.