BOSTON — In the city where the American revolution began in the 1770s and the east coast dot-com revolution was launched more than 200 years later, four teams of young Russian entrepreneurs are working to revolutionize the way the world sees high-tech companies from Russia as they take part in a prestigious competition for startups.

The teams, consisting of two Russians each, were among 128 new business entrepreneurs from around the world selected for this year's MassChallenge, "the largest accelerator competition in the world," said Scott Bailey, MassChallenge's director of partnerships.


Zet Universe, makers of an application that organizes information on new devices like tablets or phones, into aesthetic visual blocks using touch and gestures, is the fourth Russian team competing in the challenge.

Eight companies in IT and biologically-inspired branches became graduates of Lomonosov Moscow State University business incubator. Within the limits of “incubation” program residents took a course on business basis study, garnered instructional and consultative support. Besides, becoming a resident, each company received initial funds on development from investing partners Leta Capital and investing company AltaIR.


Kirill Klokov, chief of MSU business incubator direction on projects development and cooperation with investors, added: “Current intake is significantly clever. Among graduated there are people with great working experience in Google, Microsoft, Innova, Wargaming and other reputable companies. Almost all residents for the whole working period in incubator managed to issue its first product, and some of them – make first sales. There are prizewinners both of Russian and International contests, for example, resident Zet Universe came through to the final in International contest Masschallenge.