RVC and Belinfond create a joint venture fund to support startups

The Russian Venture Company and its colleagues from the Belarusian Innovation Fund signed documents on the creation of a joint venture fund with a capital of 1.4 billion Russian rubles to finance start-ups in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, Vedomosti reports . Belinfond will provide 50% of this amount, 49% - RVK, another 1% will be attracted from the Infrared Fund RVC. Financing for Russian and Belarusian startups will be provided in approximately equal proportions.

The main objective of the fund will be to support projects in the field of IT, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Fund participation in a startup will not exceed 49%, and at least 25% should belong to a private investor. At the same time, financing will be provided in different sizes both at early stages (up to 25 million rubles) and at later stages (up to 150 million rubles).

The creation of a new structure will allow to stimulate support, first of all, for Belarusian start-ups, since Belinfonda’s activities are not directly aimed at the IT sector (the structure was created back in 1998 and supports research and development work). In addition, in order to receive financing, a startup must be directed not only to the home country market, but the minimum is applicable for the EAEU countries.
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Experts note that the latter requirement for real projects that need money for development is redundant, since the market of Russia and Belarus is only 3% of the global one. For this reason, most startups immediately focus on the global market.

It is assumed that the fund will be mainly interesting for Belarusian start-ups. Minsk has long become a regional development center due to a large number of IT specialists and lower salary costs compared to, for example, Moscow or Warsaw. This led to the arrival of a number of large IT and outsourcing software development companies in the Belarusian capital. But conditions for startups are not so favorable. First of all, due to the lack of investors who could support projects financially.