Moscow has entered the top 10 of the most developed ecosystems for startups in the world
Since 2017, the capital has risen in the ranking by five positions.
Moscow ranked ninth in the StartupBlink's Startup Ecosystem Index, one position higher than last time.
“The experts' high assessment of the level of development of the innovation ecosystem in Moscow is expected: the capital is the testing ground for launching, testing and scaling up new solutions in all spheres of the country's public life. The recently adopted program of pilot testing of innovations will allow more systematic and continuous support of technology entrepreneurs in approbation and refinement of their solutions in real conditions of the urban environment,” commented Alexey Fursin, Head of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovative Development of Moscow.
The three leaders in the ranking are San Francisco, New York and London.
The study authors highlighted a number of competitive advantages of the Moscow ecosystem for startups. Among them was the Moscow Innovation Cluster (MIC), a platform for interaction between technology companies, large corporations, scientific and educational organizations, bringing together more than four thousand participants. Experts also positively assessed the joint project of MIC and the Moscow Innovation Agency for the development and scaling of startups "Moscow Accelerator". Separately, it was noted that the high positions of the capital in the ranking were influenced by the development of coworking networks.
“The development of innovations is one of the priority areas of Moscow. The Russian capital competes successfully with the world's centers of innovation, leaving behind such cities as Shanghai, Seattle and Paris. Moscow ranks third among European cities after London and Berlin,” said Kirill Purtov, Minister of the Moscow Government, Head of the Department of Economic Policy and City Development.
According to StartupBlink experts, Moscow has a special potential in the development of artificial intelligence and big data, as well as in the interaction of high technologies and creative industries.
“The Moscow startup ecosystem surprised us. The city has an outstanding number of talented technology professionals. The Moscow Innovation Agency is doing everything possible to show this to the world. Many countries face geopolitical difficulties, but to the credit of the architects of the Moscow innovation ecosystem, they never cease to combine their high-tech solutions with the global context,” the authors of the rating noted.
Center for the Creative Industry of Europe
According to the authors of the Startup Ecosystem Rankings, Moscow is the center of the creative industry in Europe, where innovative ideas are born thanks to the development of technologies. In addition to Yandex, the most famous startups include the Genotek medical genetic center and YouDo, an online service for finding performers for solving everyday and business problems. Experts also note that the Russian capital has a huge potential for research in the field of artificial intelligence and big data.
In addition, the StartupBlink center has prepared a rating of cities in terms of their level of activity in the development of innovative solutions to combat the coronavirus pandemic. It was led by San Francisco, and the Russian capital took 17th place.
“In Moscow, 18 solutions were found to combat the pandemic. These included a system of digital passes for moving around the city, developed by the Department of Information Technologies of the city, and a service for the provision of virtual medical consultations by DocDoc,” said Kirill Purtov.