START-09
The Fund for Assistance to the Development of Small Forms of Enterprises in the Scientific and Technical Sphere (hereinafter the Fund) announces the implementation in 2009 of the "START-09" program for financing innovative projects at the initial stage of development ("seed" financing). The source of funding is federal budget funds for science.
The purpose of the Program is to assist innovators seeking to develop and master the production of a new product, product, technology or service using the results of their scientific and technological research, which are at an early stage of development and have great potential for commercialization. The Fund assumes that by the end of the third year the company should sell products developed as a result of the project in the amount of at least 1 million rubles per month.
The projects are selected on a competitive basis, the selection criteria are presented in the tender documentation.
The program is designed for three years. Financing in the first year is provided for R&D, which will allow the company to enter the market either independently or by attracting extra-budgetary investments. The transition to the second and third years of financing is also carried out on a competitive basis.
The program will support only applications in which the applicant has rights to confirmed intellectual property or agreements on their use, on the basis of which a new competitive product (service) is created or the competitiveness of an existing product is increased.
To implement this task, the winners of the competition, if they are individuals, must create a small company. A company can be created in advance, this will speed up the procedure for concluding a contract in case of winning the competition, an application can also be submitted on behalf of an existing company (up to 2 years) if the company has not yet started selling products (lack of sales means that it does not exceed 0.3 million rubles per year).
Taking into account the analysis of the experience of the START Program in 2005-2007, the Fund retains most of the principles of the Program, but at the same time, a number of new fundamental points are being introduced this year, which we ask you to pay close attention to and which are reflected in the tender documentation.
Detailed information is available on the Foundation's websitePortal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru