Grant support for small and medium-sized innovative enterprises of Tatarstan has been almost doubled in 2019

At the end of 2019, the Innovation Support Fund supported 119 grant applications from small and medium-sized entrepreneurs of Tatarstan. The total amount of grants for approved projects is 648.5 million rubles, which is almost 2 times more than in 2018.

As part of the competitions, the Innovation Support Fund provides financial support to small innovative enterprises of Tatarstan, which introduce the results of their own research and development work into production. Interaction with this development institution in the Republic is supervised by the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Regional Representative of the Fund in the Republic of Tatarstan - KNITU Rector Sergey Yushko. The Ministry of Economy provides consulting assistance to innovative SMEs for participation in eight major grant programs: Commercialization, Smart, Start, Development and Development-NTI (A variation of the “Development” competition aimed at implementing projects in the field of the National Technology Initiative), “Cooperation”, “Corporations”, “Internationalization”. The amount of grants for one project is from 500 thousand to 50 million rubles.

In total, 567 projects were announced for participation in these programs in 2019, 119 of which received support from the Fund totaling 648.5 million rubles. Thus, the total amount of grant support for Tatarstan projects in 2019 increased by almost 2 times compared to 2018. In 2018, the amount of financing amounted to 360.4 million rubles.

Let us recall also that among the supported projects, 22 grants totaling 363.5 million rubles were provided to small and medium-sized innovative companies of Tatarstan within the framework of the VII, VIII and IX stages of the Commercialization Fund program, which will help them to bring their innovative developments to the market.

Among the winners of the Commercialization program is the Eidos group of companies with a medical project that received a grant of 19.6 million rubles. The company plans to use the funds for marketing promotion of its own development - the patient-robot of the newborn MIA - in the Russian and international markets. Another project of the Eidos-Robotekhnika company, awarded with a grant of 11.5 million rubles, is aimed at creating smart production systems that allow robotization of technological processes in the food, light industry and mechanical engineering.

Another grant holder for 20 million rubles under the same program was Polimiz-Tara OOO with a project for production of polymer products based on polyethylene recycled products. The company plans to open a new production site in Laishevskiy district, the proceeds will go to purchase the necessary equipment.

One of the winners in the Start program was FST-Integro, a resident of the Innopolis SEZ. The developer introduced a cloud-based information solution for flexible bus passenger transportation management, which was supported by a grant of 2 million rubles.

The youngest contestant who received a grant of 3 million rubles in the framework of the Start-Digital Breakthrough contest was Bulat Zamaliyev, a postgraduate student at KFU. He developed the “Digital Village” project, which allows providing residents of rural settlements with food, essential goods, and registering residents for medical examinations without the participation of retail service personnel. The concept involves the placement in the villages of the so-called “stores without a seller”, “smart warehouses” for farmers, telemedicine centers. The implementation of the project will allow integrating rural settlements into the digital economy, a solution is being prepared for launch not only in Tatarstan, but also in foreign countries. So, in September 2019, a memorandum was signed with representatives of Africa on implementation of the project in Nigeria and South Africa.

According to the Minister of Economy of the Republic of Tatarstan Farid Abdulganiyev, in 2020, entrepreneurs will also have the opportunity to receive grant support from the Fund for the implementation of their ideas and projects. “In 2020, the amount of funding for the competitions of the Fund for Promotion of Development of Small Forms of Enterprises in the Scientific and Technical Field will amount to 12 billion rubles. At the moment, small innovative companies can take part in competitions under the support program “Commercialization”, as well as “Start” and “Development” within the framework of the national program “Digital Economy”, noted RT Minister of Economy Farid Abdulganiyev.