Skolkovo Foundation has increased amount of grants from $50,000 to $170,000, RBC daily reports.

Under plans, Skolkovo management will be able to give grants without approval of investment committee in order to help startups to develop faster.

According to the news agency’s startups, new grant policy was enforced since the beginning of 2012. “In high-cost sectors, such as biopharmaceuticals or IT, $50,000 is not sufficient for development of first models and prototypes,” the sources said. Aleksander Turkot, director of the IT-cluster, claims that he has already given out grants of over $50,000 to several projects.

Sergey Zhukov, heading the space cluster, confirmed increase of grant amount to $170,000. “Skolkovo managers are considering delegating mini-grant approval power to the council of executive directors. Details of the new policy are currently being negotiated,” he added.

Andrey Gershfeld, investment managed of ABRT fund, believes that $170,000 is a decent sum that should be invested but not given out as grants. “On the other hand, the foundation’s decision to increase the amount was the right one. As for IT sector, $50,000 is only sufficient for marketing research, designer services and business-plan development, but not enough for launching ready product on the market,” the expert contemplates.

Olga Uskova, the president of NAIR-IT, the National Association of Innovation and IT Development, does not completely approve increasing the amount, which is not accountable to the Skolkovo grant committee. “$170,000 is not that small an amount to completely trust it to a startup with no control. I believe that any funds spent through the foundation need to be reported to Skolkovo management and public,” she explains.