Internet initiatives development Fund will create accelerators in regions

Internet initiatives development Fund (IIDF) together with Saint Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics announced about intend to create business accelerators in regions for support of commercially perspective Internet-Startups. “Opening of business-accelerators in regions will allow working with uncovered nowadays audience of Startupers”, - said Kirill Varlamov, Chief of IIDF.

According to IIDF, at the moment 80% of all the Startups are located in Moscow, which is explained by concentration of required infrastructure here. Internet initiatives development Fund and Saint Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics are planning to organize accelerators in several regional centers, among which are Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Tomsk, Perm, Saint Petersburg, and a range of other cities with good technical potential. Accelerators work starts in the beginning of 2014, in some regions they will be launched as IIDF projects, the rest will work in partnership with local players.

According to Mr.Varlamov, it is difficult to forecast success of this investment in regional Startups, because these companies often move to Moscow due to absence of adequate infrastructure in their cities: “Guys in regions will have all the same conditions of acceleration (educational course, experts, financing), as a team in Moscow accelerator, which starts in October”.

Standard conditions for Startups for IIDF provide educational program and financing up to $25K for modification and launch of a business project. Total size of investments will depend on amount of approved Startups, the limit for projects` quantity is not yet defined.

Saint Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics is appointed as the partner of the regional expansion, because it has experience of business-accelerators creation in regions. Its project iDealMachine for two years has held three Startup-sessions, in the course of which 16 projects have received total financing $320K.