Effective date: state-owned companies will be required to become business angels

State—owned companies will be required to invest in startups and small businesses and act as business angels. In the context of a poorly developed institute for financing IT startups, the Union for the Support and Development of Technological Organizations proposed an initiative to the Ministry of Economic Development: state corporations will purchase products from IT startups, which will increase the number of young projects in the Russian Federation sixfold. Now large state-owned businesses have their own development subsidiaries that create software "for themselves." Why there is no place for beginners in such chains and what initiatives will help change the situation — in the Izvestia article.

What kind of support are Russian startups waiting for?

It is advisable to make purchases of products from start-ups (small technology companies, MTS) mandatory for the largest organizations, including those with state participation. This proposal is part of the support measures for small IT firms that the Ministry of Economic Development is asking the Union for the Support and Development of Technology Companies (STK) to introduce. Izvestia has reviewed the letter from this organization to the agency.

The union also proposes to soften the legislation on public procurement so that startups can participate in them on an equal basis with large vendors, create an ombudsman institution for the ITC, acting as a mediator and accompanying companies' requests to government agencies, and other measures.

Now all the largest corporations have opened their own IT companies (until recently they had IT departments), which are engaged in internal development, Ilya Nazarov, a member of the Board of the STK and CEO of Digital Markets, told Izvestia. This state of affairs, that is, developments within their companies instead of purchases from independent players, is a big problem for the industry. It is the ITC that should provide ready-made solutions, he noted. The provisions of the procurement legislation that should be reviewed include, for example, excessive information security requirements in terms of necessary licensing, he added.

In September 2025, Digital Markets and STK conducted a study to assess the real potential of the MTK market. Potentially, there could be about 30 thousand such companies in the Russian Federation, but according to the Ministry of Economic Development and the SME Corporation, there are only 5.7 thousand of them now, as noted in the materials of the union.

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"Thus, their number is almost six times less than the potential, and tens of thousands of technology players are not yet seeking to enter the register," the union states. The reason that there are fewer startups of this format in the Russian Federation than there could be, their authors cite insufficient support measures, so the actual business value of the MTK status remains extremely limited.

"The importance of the MTK sector for the economy cannot be overestimated. Companies with MTK status already generate over 1 trillion rubles in annual revenue and create tens of thousands of jobs," the letter to the Ministry of Energy says.

— Small technology companies are the new blood of the economy. By itself, the law on them gave rise to their creation, but there are practically no real tools for business. If we want to see tens of thousands of MTKS, rather than several thousand, we urgently need to finalize the support system," said Evgenia Dmitrieva, President of the CTK.

The appeal was sent to the Ministry of Economic Development and is under consideration by the relevant department, the department said. They added that a number of proposals mentioned in this appeal are already being implemented, for example, focus support for companies with small revenues. Some of them are being worked out, in particular, the integration of MTK into cooperative chains. Other initiatives, such as the introduction of special conditions for the purchase of MTK products, have not received support from relevant departments, according to the results of the study, the Ministry of Economic Development said.

Izvestia sent inquiries to the Skolkovo Foundation, as well as to state corporations.

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Which laws will need to be edited

It is not only the STC that raises the issue of supporting startups. In the summer of 2025, it became known that relevant departments and development institutions are discussing an increase in the revenue threshold for MTS eligible for tax benefits and registered in Skolkovo, as well as in some other technology parks. Currently, companies with revenues of no more than 1 billion rubles per year can apply for benefits — it is proposed to raise this threshold to 4 billion, since the current limit does not correspond to the scale of modern technological projects, market participants noted. This would especially help startups developing dual-use products: UAVs, communications, cryptography, and others.

Small technology companies really need support measures, including through the formalization of their participation in the supply chains of large state corporations, says Ilya Zharsky, managing partner of the Veta expert group.

"The public sector in our economy is the largest customer of goods and services, so access to government orders determines the success of a business by default, but the barriers to access here are very high, as is competition," he argues.

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Narrow specialists and holders of development and administration skills are also in demand.

However, the proposed support measures require significant changes in the legislation on public procurement, the expert adds. Now it is built primarily in the interests of the customer, and it is unprofitable for him to split up contracts and reduce requirements for suppliers in order to expand access to the MTS, the expert believes.

— High requirements for securing applications not only create an excessive burden on the MTC, but often completely block their participation in competitive procedures. At the same time, delays in payment for work create very real bankruptcy risks," he describes the problem.

The integration of MTK into the supply chains of state corporations will provide them with stable orders and improve access to large contracts, Ilya Zharsky believes.

The provision obliging state-owned companies to purchase MTK products and developments can really help the stable development of small technology projects, agrees Denis Kuskov, CEO of TelecomDaily. But we should work out the details and see how economically feasible it is, he believes.

Leonid Konik, a partner at ComNews Research, in turn, considers the mandatory inclusion of MTK in the supply chains of corporations strange. State-owned companies already have procurement obligations from small and medium-sized businesses, and often they simply artificially split up large purchases to meet these requirements, the expert says. The distinction between SMEs and MTK will create confusion and will not help either these companies or their customers, Leonid Konik believes.