&host=rt.com&uri=/business/news/russia-skolkovo-silicon-valley/&via=(none)&ua=CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html))
Silicon visitors push private for Skolkovo
Published: 13 October, 2010, 12:29
Edited: 26 October, 2010, 22:11
TAGS: Investment, Markets, Russia and the global economy, Big deal
America's Silicon Valley founders suggest “taking government out” and letting Russian startups grow through private money, but some also note that Russian factors lead to more government involvement.
The investors who built California’s Silicon Valley have come to help Russia create its own. But they’re worried its state driven, led by President Dmitry Medvedev, with Danny Wallace, a Silicon Valley partner from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, saying excessive government involvement could put investors off.
“The whole idea about venture capital is you take government out of the equation, and you leave it up to the entrepreneur. So that’s definitely something that will be front and centre of their minds when making investment decisions.”
However, Anatoly Chubais, Director General at Russian Technology Corporation, warns Russia is different.
“We have a very special situation where you can’t introduce innovation by decree, but at the same time in Russia you cannot introduce them without the decree. So that’s the kind of the Russian mystery.”
Both ways can work. Ivan Nachaev, Executive Director at Autotracker, says state funds helped start AutoTracker, top maker of fleet management software known as telematics. In August, Russia’s first venture Initial Public Offering took it private, making the young founders very rich indeed.
“We started as a group of students inspired by the idea that telematics will rule the world.
VTB and the Russian Venture Company, which believed our idea, gave us money to go national. And in 2010 we started thinking worldwide, we understood there are a lot of emerging markets where our products are very competitive, and we made an IPO just for going abroad.”
The state will fund at least half the $6 billion cost of Russia’s Silicon Valley, currently under construction in Skolkovo near Moscow. But there are signs the Californian delegation is starting to influence. On Monday, Skolkovo chief Victor Vekselberg admitted “this project will only be successful if hundreds of independent companies join.”
12.10.2010, 17:28
2 comments
On Russian modernization: Deutsche BankWith the government and business leaders emphasizing the need to modernize and develop an innovative economy, Business RT spoke with Yaroslav Lissovolik, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Russia. |
13.10.2010, 15:06
Staples and Pragmatic Express link up on office suppliesStaples, the worlds largest office products company, has announced a new strategic alliance with leading Russian office products suppliers, Pragmatic Express. |
Probably, the unstable situation in part of the Caucasus region (Chechenya, Georgia) played also against that alternative. If in the future there is stability and a free flow of goods, people and services between all the Republics in the Caucaus region it will be the time for Sochi.
Bogdanov, yes what new high tech companies want is both employers and employees to live in a comfortable enviroment, and anything which helps to promote comfort and happiness while working is taking into account, so not only financial support (venture capitalists, and credit), academic support (universities and laboratories), infreastructure (broadband connection, good roads) but also the weather (sun and sea) All that help to create a comfortable enviroment. It can be said that the Moscow oblast has, or can have in a short period, the first three elements but not the last one. Well, Sochi is still there and it will be the opportunity for private Russian and international investors to create an alternative there without Government intervention (with the exception of infraestructure being bult for the Olympics) So it could be a completely private initiative (even a private University could be bult) to see if it is more successful than Skolkovo in two decades...
Skolkovo is what Mevedev always said the first Russian Silicon Valley and it is a good start for the modernization of the Russian economy. We are an Industrial Design company located in Krasnodarsky Krai and we found out that this region is a preferred place to move in high skilled people from around the world. Why the Russian government started such an activity not far from Moscow is easy to explain, it motivates more government people in the country to support a similar activity in their regions.