Support for start-ups at early stages remains weak in Russia

The managers of Rusnano and RVC consider pre-seed capital funds that support start-ups at the earliest stages of development as the weak link of the Russian innovation system. In particular, according to the chairman of Rusnano Anatoly Chubais, this segment to help young companies is still very weak.

This problem was discussed at a meeting with experts organized by the Russian innovation center in Silicon Valley. The problem of pre-seed investments is the selection of projects - Igor Agamirzyan said, noting that the cooperation with relevant experts, which are are business angels in this case, can partially solve this problem.

Note that there are primarily the Fund for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in Science and technology (Bortnik Fund) and RVC Seed Fund that works in this field and has supported 50 projects with an average investment in one project of about 18M RUR.

According to Agamirzian, RVC plans to expand similar programs, in particular, the co-financing of such projects jointly with business angels. Agamirzyan noted with regret that there is no entrepreneurial university in the traditional international sense in Russia at the moment.