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Russia has Europe’s third-biggest venture investment market worth $480 mln

MOSCOW, August 11. /TASS/. Russia has the third-biggest market of venture investment worth $480 mln, which has been created through development institutes.

According to the data provided by the Russian Government official website, in 2009-2014 Russian development institutes - Rusnano, RVC, Skolkovo Fund, Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises and VEB Innovations Fund - backed more than 20,000 innovative companies for a total of 210 bln rubles ($3.2 bln), with more than 224 bln rubles ($3.4 bln) worth of additionally raised funds. The supported innovative companies reported revenues of around 839 bln rubles ($13 bln) in the period, including export revenues of 71.2 bln rubles ($1.1 bln).

The financing of the Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises was more than doubled in 2015 to 8.5 bln rubles ($132 mln) compared with 2014 to back innovative projects at early stages, the report said. In order to improve the efficiency of backing the projects on introducing innovative products to Russian production the Fund of Technological Development created an effective mechanism of providing repayment financing to enterprises worth from 50 to 700 mln rubles for launching new production facilities and undertaking research studies at 5% interest rate within 7-year period. The fund’s capital totals around 20 bln rubles ($311 mln).

"The results carry inference that in general the created development institutes managed to solve the tasks of forming the system of search, selection and support of promising innovative projects. Currently, the top priority task, which impacts the total efficiency of the created innovative infrastructure, is boosting the demand for innovative products made by the companies with the support of development institutes, including their active involvement in import substitution programs in the most important sectors of the Russian economy," the report said.