BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb .7
By Nargiz Ismayilova - Trend:
The INNOLAND Incubation and Acceleration Center has summed up the results of its activities for 2019. The details were revealed by director of INNOLAND Mammad Karim in an interview with Trend.
What kind of services does INNOLAND provide?
INNOLAND provides incubation and acceleration services for startups. It is an incubation, acceleration and research center created to develop private sector, promote innovation and expand the startup movement both in Azerbaijan and beyond its borders. INNOLAND consists of an incubator, an accelerator, a co-working space and an IT Training and Education Center. The co-working space is a profitable approach combining many opportunities for organizing work for startups, programmers, and people working in the field of innovation alone or in a small team.
Which model the company's operating principle is based on?
Basically, the company operates on the basis of the PPP model (public-private partnership). Within the framework of public and private cooperation, several programs such as incubation, acceleration, programming courses, and other services are being implemented. In total, the company provides about 15 types of services.
INNOLAND positions itself as the final instance to which startups in our country will turn to. The goal is to ensure the startups released from our center to be ready for entering the international market. To this end, INNOLAND attracts a large number of local experts as well as foreign mentors in the implementation of internal programs. For this reason, serious attention is paid to international cooperation, joint programs and actions are held. Mostly work is held with international investors. At the moment, we are actively negotiating with 20 international organizations.
Representatives of which countries developed their startups within the framework of INNOLAND?
One of the goals of INNOLAND is to contribute to the transformation of Azerbaijan into an international technology center. Until now, along with the citizens of the country, citizens of Iran, Turkey, and China are also developing their startups in the center.
How many startup projects were supported in 2019?
In 2019, the center supported 52 startups, directly and indirectly. Most of these startups are still active. Some of them already receive income, while others sell their services to foreign customers. In 2020, the center plans to increase the number of projects.
What kind of startups are of great investment interest?
Investments are attracted to projects that basically have a complete team and a prototype, as well as start-ups that can sell in small volumes. To this date, investments worth 1.2 million manat ($705,882) have been attracted. Some 75 percent of the total amount came from local investors, while the remaining 25 percent came from foreign investors.
What are the center’s plans for 2020?
In 2020, it is also planned to open the second INNOLAND Incubation and Acceleration Center. Due to the large number of applications and growth in the number of startups within the country, we decided to launch the second one. The second INNOLAND Center will be located in Baku. The center plans to support hundreds of startup projects throughout 2020. We also have big plans to expand the geography of activities, in particular, in the country’s Ganja, Shaki, and Shamakhi cities. We held several hackathons (forums for developers, during which specialists from different fields of software development work together to solve a problem for a while). During 2020, we plan to send 12 startups to the US.
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