BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 18
By Eldar Janashvili – Trend:
The ecosystem of the Azerbaijani startups has not been improved yet, Tariyel Aghazada, program manager of the SUP.VC center, told Trend on June 18.
“The steps for development of this segment have been taken only during the last 5-7 years,” he said. “However, the Azerbaijani corporate sector has recently joined the opening of incubation and acceleration centers. A number of centers, institutions, acceleration centers and business incubators are making the efforts to develop the ecosystem and provide startups with services based on international experience.”
“The corporate sector has also recently shown interest in this sphere and has been taking various steps to develop a startup environment in the country,” Aghazada added. “This refers the joint programs organized between acceleration centers and banks, joint programs of the food sector and business incubators and hackathons dedicated to various topics.”
“The main purpose of these programs is to be even more useful for startups by using the knowledge of business mentors, instructors and innovative solutions of the center’s specialists,” program manager said.
The program manager also emphasized that there are those in the corporate sector who implement such programs not only together with acceleration and incubation centers, but on the basis of only internal work resources, including the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA).
“We often use the term ecosystem, but we don’t have it yet,” Toghrul Samad, founder and CEO of 'Bug Startap', said. “This is a complex concept consisting of several significant chains. If there is no chain component, the ecosystem is destroyed.”
“Currently, investors complain about the lack of startups,” the program manager said. “One of the reasons is the lack of incubation centers, which are the primary ring of the ecosystem. A big number of projects must be obtained from incubators, some of which may pass to the next stage of development. The IBA’s desire to associate its brand with innovations is a normal marketing strategy for bank.”
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