Skolkovo Gets The First Startup Funded

According to arcticstartup.com:

"The Skolkovo Foundation, established last year in Russia, is the country's biggest project to enhance tech and business development. At the end of last year, Skolkovo was boasting about the high-tech innovation hub they are planning to build and turn the whole project into the Russian equivalent of Silicon Valley. While building work has not yet begun, the foundation has already started developing the ecosystem around itself. Most notably, Skolkovo Foundation assisted in choosing and funding the first start-up to be part of Skolkovo project - Pirate Pay. Pirate Pay is based in Perm and it has developed technology to block illegal downloads through peer-to-peer torrent sites. The seed funding was provided by Mircrosoft BizSpark programme in Russia and it amounted to $100 000, reports The Moscow Times. Head of Microsoft Russia Nikolai Pryanishnikov was reported to claim that Microsoft would fund 100 IT startups in the next 10 years, issuing grants ranging between $30,000 and $500,000.

Pirate Pay has been looking for seed investors since July last year when they took second place in a local business and technology competition. The company instantly sparked intense debate among internet users: how does the technology work and is it a good move from the user's point of view?"

Read More here: http://www.arcticstartup.com/2011/03/07/skolkovo-gets-the-first-startup-funded