Investors from the United States (US) are pledging to financially support the best of Georgia’s young, creative minds to turn their new business idea into reality.
A group of investors from the US are coming to Georgia next week, while business experts from Silicon Valley have come to Georgia to meet the 51 finalists of Start-up Georgia and prepare them to launch their business.
When Start-up Georgia launched two months ago, creative entrepreneurs were invited to describe their business ideas and submit an application to the Start-up Georgia state project.
The competition attracted 726 applications of new business ideas. Of this 580 proposals were submitted as innovative ideas while 146 were regarded as high technology businesses.
Georgia’s Economy Minister Dimitry Kumsishvili said the selection was made in two stages; the first stage was a general review of applications and the second stage was a review of the merits of the business.
This involved a risk assessment, business sustainability, investment attractiveness, team skills and more,” said Kumsishvili.
Fifty-one finalists were selected but now Georgian and the US business experts must work to shortlist the candidates who will receive financial backing.
Kumsishvili said the 51 finalists all had business ideas that had the potential to be commercialised for world markets, and each had promising investment potential.
Shortlisting the successful candidates will be done before the end of August and by September the scheme will begin financing new business ideas.
The Silicon Valley business representatives are leading a five-day training program that is teaching the the 51 finalists how to properly prepare themselves and their business for launching, marketing tools and more. The training started yesterday in capital Tbilisi.
The final round of the competition will be held from August 22-25. By next week the US investors will have arrived in Georgia and together with the Silicon Valley business experts, they will listen to the final presentations and choose the winners.
Kumsishvili said the Start-up Georgia scheme was an important part of the Government’s four-point reform agenda that was created to support local businesses and develop the economy. The scheme promised great financial and theoretical support for entrepreneurs to help bring their business proposals to life.
The Government established an initial fund of 11 million GEL (about $5 million/€4.19 million*) that will be shared between chosen business projects, however the amount of funds available is set to increase to 35 million GEL (about $15 million/€13.77 million*).
*Currencies are equivalent with latest National Bank of Georgia exchange rate.