The Government of North Macedonia has approved the Accelerated Economic Growth Plan 2022-2026, which includes a 27 million euro hybrid investment fund that will focus on startups and innovative companies.
According to Kosta Petrov, director of the Fund for Innovation and Technological Development (FITR), this development marks a historic day for the Macedonian startup ecosystem.
“The State will participate in the Investment Fund to the tune of 10 million euros, while the remaining 17 million euros will come from private capital and international financial institutions. The investment fund will be managed by an internationally selected fund management company, registered in accordance with the law on alternative investment funds in the EU,” Petrov said.
The fund’s investments will range from 100,000 to 1.5 million euros, aimed at Macedonian and regional startups, Petrov added. One of the verticals that the country wants to invest and develop in is artificial intelligence (AI). This month, the FITR shape a task force whose goal is to create the nation’s first national strategy for AI.
“We recently received the first public call for an artificial intelligence-based digital assistant. For next year, it is planned to create a special instrument to support startups working with artificial intelligence in the country,” Petrov said earlier this month.
The new investment fund is also supported by the World Bank and is expected to start investing in the second half of 2022.
Currently there is around 400 active startups in the country that operate in different areas, such as innovation, technology, value creation and increasing growth potential. Most of them focus on foreign and global markets, in new and emerging sectors such as AI, agricultural technology or biotechnology.
Most of these startups get their funding and seed capital through the state-sponsored FITR, which helps them with most aspects of their work, starting with grants and additional funding projects.
