Startup Grind Tbilisi brings together over 1,500 participants

The Startup Grind Tbilisi, the region's largest startup event in Tbilisi, was held on the weekend. Startup Grind Europe-Asia Connect was held in partnership with Georgia's Innovation and Technology Agency and attended by over 1,500 participants.

For two days, the Startup Grind regional event brought together world-class startups, technology companies and experts to make the region attractive to successful businesses worldwide, foster innovation and technology, and attract investment.

Speakers at the technology conference were founders and representatives of companies such as Google, Glovo, 500 Startups Fintech Fund, Picsart, Garage Ventures, Shift, Nexus Partners and more. Also, trainers and investors from Europe and the US. The event included a variety of sessions and panel discussions.

Startup Grind is the largest international network of startups with more than 600 representatives and 2 million members.

Representatives of the Georgian government also attended the event. Archil Talakvadze, Speaker of the Georgian parliament delivered a welcoming speech at the region's largest startup event. He spoke about the importance of Startup and emphasized the need for more innovation, creativity, and interconnection.

According to him, one of the main goals of the government is to make Georgia one of the most attractive places for business. As he noted, to achieve this goal, the country has already taken some important steps and created very important motivation for startups, including lowering taxes, easier access to startup capital and modernization of the public system.

In his speech, the Speaker of Parliament also emphasized the role of the Internet in the economic revolution and once again emphasized the importance of developing innovation and creativity.

The Mayor of Tbilisi, Kakha Kaladze also had the opportunity to address people. Such large-scale events help the popularization of the capital and properly represent innovative young people.

“We welcome such events in Tbilisi. We will do our best to support these young people's talents in the benefit of the country and specific useful projects,” noted Kaladze.

Natia Turnava, the Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, has officially announced the launch of the fourth phase of the $ 100,000 co-financing grants program at the launch of the regional event.

The program is implemented by the Ministry of Innovation and Technology Agency with the support of the World Bank's National Innovation Ecosystem Project (GENIE). The program aims to develop and commercialize innovative products and services of international potential in Georgia.

“Our task is to select products and ideas that will be of interest to the international market. We continually focus on new technologies, innovation, development of start-ups," said Turnava. According to her, the co-funding grants in one of the most common instruments, which is used to support innovation, both in developed and developing economies.

GENIE is a co-financing program for startup companies, the budget of the program is 2 million GEL. The maximum amount of the requested grant should not exceed 100,000 GEL.