Skolkovo’s Biomed Cluster is expecting around 30 to 40 agriculture-based startups to become residents in the coming months as the Russian government moves to encourage high-tech innovation in food production.
Skolkovo VP Kirill Kaem, the executive director of the Biomed Cluster. Photo: sk.ru
The executive director of the cluster, Kirill Kaem, announced during the seventh stage of the Russian Startup Tour in St. Petersburg that startups engaged in arable farming, crop production, forestry and microbiology would be admitted from June.
“We decided to open this new avenue a year ago,” said Kaem, also a Skolkovo vice president. “It’s needed because of the sheer volume of worthy projects in the field of agriculture that the foundation would like to support,” he added.
Skolkovo president Viktor Vekselberg first publicly mooted the idea of expanding into agriculture, suggesting it could be designated a sixth cluster, on top of IT, Space, Nuclear, Energy and Biomed.
“This sector is lagging behind but has huge potential,” Vekselberg said.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was quoted as saying by the TASS new agency in January that Russian agriculture has the potential not only to meet current domestic demand but also provide food for export.
Last week, the Russian Cabinet put out a statement confirming plans for Skolkovo to include a “biotechnology in agriculture and industry.”
Kaem confirmed the decision had been made simply to add agriculture projects to the Biomed Cluster due to the extent of overlap between the two fields. Creating a vaccine employs much of the same technology for humans as it does animals, Kaem noted.
Startups that become Skolkovo residents qualify for a wealth of benefits including: grants, investment, patent support, office space, tax breaks and so on.