SMBDA allocates grants for several start-ups

By Trend

Small and Medium Business Development Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan has allocated grants for 13 start-up projects, Chairman of the Board of the Small and Medium Business Development Agency Orkhan Mammadov said during a conference on financing scientific projects of the small and medium businesses, Trend reports.

Mammadov said that such projects as the creation of an e-database of documents, a water treatment plant, a Smart Data Analytics Platform, as well as "smart" waste collection and recycling, a mobile application for selling food products, a unified storage system, the development of women's business, beekeeping, development of equipment to increase farm productivity, expansion of export of local textile products in the European market, development of social entrepreneurship, software, automatic translation of audio/video files into Azerbaijani language, support for the development of a startup ecosystem were nominated for the second grant.

“Some 200 projects were submitted for the competition,” the chairman said. “The expert commission, consisting of the representatives of various structures, decided to finance only 13 projects. About 248,000 manat ($145,882) were allocated for these purposes. The corresponding funds will be transferred to the bank accounts of the winners in the coming days.”

Mammadov said that the maximum grant amount is 20,000 manat ($11,764).

“These funds will be allocated from the state budget,” chairman added. “Our agency will monitor the development of the project, as well as the use of funds for these purposes. The winners of the competition will be able to apply for a start-up certificate, which will exempt them from VAT on profit for three years.”

Mammadov emphasized that Kazakhstan has already shown interest in the Azerbaijani start-up project related to combating ticks in agriculture.

“Some 15 start-up projects were financed by the Small and Medium Business Development Agency from January through April 2021,” the chairman said.