Assistance Foundation to Give Grants to GenerationS-2015 Participants

Grant financing will be provided by the Assistance Foundation under the Start program with the purpose to support innovations that have great commercial potential and are aimed at development of new services, products, and materials, including development of new technology markets. Each project selected for training in GenerationS corporate accelerators will be able to qualify* for the grant in the amount of RUB 1 mn.

Just as GenerationS, the Start program is aimed at technology entrepreneurs as developers of innovative products, who understand the commercial prospects of the project and are able to gather an ambitious team to bring the product to market. If the company successfully meets the terms of the contract under the Start program, it will qualify for further funding of up to RUB 5 mn under the program. Since the second stage, the grant support will be continued in co-financing on a parity basis.

In 2015, acceleration of GenerationS projects is run in seven industry sectors: SmartCity, BiotechMed (medicine and biotechnology), Oil & Gas (technologies and materials in the oil and gas sector), Power & Energy (modern power generation technologies), Aerospace (technology for the aerospace industry), and Robotics. The seventh track will be presented at the official opening of GenerationS on the 27th of April.

Ivan Bortnik, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Assistance Foundation and Member of the Board of Trustees of GenerationS, noted, "Partnership between the Assistance Foundation and RVC has a several year history. GenerationS is a vivid example of cooperation between development institutions, proving that Russia's innovative system is operational. Last year, more than ten GenerationS finalists received grants of the Foundation. Many of the companies previously supported by the Foundation also were among the winners of the competition. I hope that this year there will be even more worthy and promising projects."

Gulnara Bikkulova, Director of the Innovative Market Department and Member of the Board of RVC said, "RVC and Assistance Foundation have been ideologically like-minded partners on a number of projects for many years. We hope that this year the efforts of our organizations to find and support commercialization of developments in high-tech industries coupled with our activities in development of regional innovation ecosystems will help us find the projects that will be in demand by Russian corporations."

In 2015, RVC as the project developer introduced a new format of GenerationS. Now GenerationS resources will be used to create corporate and industrial accelerators in close cooperation with major Russian corporations. Leading Russian companies are to become direct customers of technological innovation. They will be directly involved in selection and assessment of projects. They will also design and implement an acceleration program based on their real needs in innovative developments.

*The Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in Science and Technology provides an opportunity to receive a grant in the amount of one million rubles in research and development (R&D) to all the participating projects selected for corporate tracks, subject to the following conditions:

• Project details shall be provided to the electronic system the Assistance Foundation at http://online.fasie.ru.
• When submitting an application to the Assistance Foundation's system, the legal entity shall be a small business entity incorporated under Federal Law No. 209-FZ of July 24, 2007 or No. 217-FZ of August 2, 2009.
• The economic activities of the legal entity shall include the code of the Russian National Classifier of Economic Activities (OKVED) "Science and Engineering Research and Development" 73.10 (OK 029-2001 and OK 029-2007) or 72.1 (OK 029-2014).
• The legal entity has not previously been a winner of competitions held by the Assistance Foundation.
• The work financed by the Assistance Foundation should not duplicate the content of the work carried out at the moment at the expense of other foundations or organizations, subsidies for financial support of a state (municipal) job, or any other budgetary sources of funding.
• The company's employees should not participate in other projects financed by the Assistance Foundation.
• In accordance with the Charter of the Assistance Foundation, the purpose of the proposed project should be implementation of technologies for civil use and must not contain information constituting a state secret or attributable to restricted information protected under the applicable laws of the Russian Federation.
• Subject to successful implementation of R&D within the project, the entity will be able to qualify for continued grant funding under the Start program held by the Assistance Foundation, if it raises extra-budgetary funds for the project in an amount not less than the funds provided by the Assistance Foundation.