The Ukrainian Startup Fund will start accepting applications from startups in November 2019, and plans to hold a pitch event in December, member of the fund’s supervisory board Lesia Sevruk has told Interfax-Ukraine. “At present, a portal is being developed through which applications will be submitted. Accordingly, they are not yet available. Submitting applications through the portal is fundamental for us to minimize the subjective influence of the fund’s employees on the selection process. We plan to receive applications in November, and an event in December,” she said.
According to her, the fund’s supervisory board has approved the procedure for issuing grants and regulations on the commission and expert council.
“In the near future we will form a commission and an expert council,” Sevruk added.
As reported, the Ukrainian Startup Fund with a budget of UAH 400 million was launched in July 2019. The fund plans to give grants to startups at an early stage in the amount of $25,000 to $75,000. The fund announced the first five transactions by the end of 2019.
The spending of funds under the program of providing public grants to buy agricultural machinery in 2018 grew to UAH 912.9 million from UAH 134.1 million a year ago, and the number of agricultural companies that participated in the program of partial compensation for purchase of Ukrainian-made agricultural machinery rose to 7,043 from 1,220.
Agricultural enterprises bought 17,182 units of agricultural machinery for UAH 4.4 billion in 2018, First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv wrote on his Facebook page. In 2017, companies bought 2,906 units of agricultural machinery under the public grants program, he said. “This mechanism of support for Ukrainian agricultural machinery manufacturers allows us to simultaneously stimulate modernization in the agricultural and industrial sector, increase the localization of agricultural machinery production in Ukraine and develop Ukrainian industrial production,” Kubiv said.
As reported, the budget for 2018 provided for UAH 945 million to reduce the cost of agricultural equipment. The 2019 budget for government support of the agricultural and industrial complex is announced to be about UAH 6 billion. In particular, grants for the purchase of agricultural equipment amount to some UAH 0.9 billion.