Ten Russian hi-tech companies out of 179 applicants received new opportunities to encourage their entry into the European market as a result of a Finlanding competition.
The finalists of the Finlanding project were announced on June 3 in St. Petersburg.
Finlanding is the first Russian-Finnish program for Russian hi-tech companies which are planning to enter the European market. According to the competition results, ten Russian hi-tech companies with a focus on innovation received new opportunities to encourage their entry into the European market.
Finlanding is a special program for Russian companies interested in international business. Hi-Tech companies from different regions of Russia were invited to participate in the competition held as part of the project. The total number of entries was 179, twice more than expected. The majority of entries came from companies based in St. Petersburg and Moscow, but the project attracted companies from Perm, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Samara, and other Russian cities as well.
All Finlanding participants were invited to attend Training Day which took place in St. Petersburg on June 3. In the course of this initiative, representatives of a number of Finnish regions and organizations involved in enterprise support talked about the specifics of working on the European market, and Igor Kuprienko, CEO of PharmBioTech OY, shared his experience in implementing a hi-tech project in Finland. In addition, Dmitry Churin, senior associate with Capital Legal Services talked about the establishment of the first Russian legal office in Helsinki.
The high point of Training Day was the announcement of the ten competition finalists: Geoscan Technologies, PARSEQ Lab, Fishmagnet, Tyrnet (with the Scatchduino project), AK Service, Spectechnopribor, MEDEL, Scientific and Technology Center “Synergy”, Avtostankoprom, and Energyindustry Automatization LLC. The selection of winners was based on such criteria as having an innovative Hi-Tech product designed for the international markets, an export-oriented business model, economic feasibility, and existence of a team, strategy, and resources for promotion. Factors of importance were also the positive reviews of customers in Moscow and the project’s usefulness from the standpoint of regional cluster advantages.
The Finlanding finalists are now heading on a business tour of 4 Finland regions (Helsinki, Kotka, Tampere, and Lahti) where they will have several days of individual consultations and meetings with Finnish experts and partners, and will also participate in key business forums throughout the year.
The organizers are confident that Finlanding will assist the Russian Hi-Tech companies in finding support for creating their European platform as well as in acquiring partners and customers in Finland and the European Union. The organizers are hopeful that this first program will prove itself as an effective instrument for supporting companies and will be continued further.
Finlanding is a part of a cooperation project MOCT (www.moct.fi), which is funded by the Finnish Ministry of Economy and Labour. Competition is organized by the Helsinki center in St. Petersburg. The project is carried out with the participation of Ingria Business Incubator and the Euro-Info Consulting Center in St. Petersburg.
See the program description at www.finlanding.fi.
Contact Information:
Dmitry Klenov, PR Manager
Ph.: +7-812- 313-10-85; Mobile: +7-921-552-07-43
e-mail: d.klenov@ingria-park.ru web
www.ingria-startup.ru, www.ingria-park.ru
Ingria Business Incubator is a platform for accelerated development of startups. The incubator residents receive consultation services in 4 main spheres: investments, mentors, customers, talents. In addition, Ingria features a special program I2U for partnership with higher education institutions and promotes the Center for Technology Transfer program as well as the growing cooperation with foreign innovation centers.
