The French-Serbian Chamber of Commerce invited all startups or individuals who are planning to launch a start-up company to apply for a free one-year mentoring programme of support for the development of their business – “Startup Accelerator”. To enable as many startups to compete for this programme, the Chamber has decided to move the deadline for another month, so candidates can apply until the end of February 2017.
Within Startup Accelerator there will be selected to three startup companies or three teams that will in the coming year, free of charge, be able to advise directors and managers of the largest French companies operating in Serbia, with a view to their expertise, experience, contacts and ideas helping the development of their business. The Governing Board consists of 11 directors of French companies among which are the French and Serbs, the leading company of people like Schneider Electric, Lafarge, Crédit Agricole, Saint-Gobain Weber, PricewaterhouseCoopers, SADE and others. In addition, the selected startups will automatically become members of the Franco-Serbian Chamber of Commerce, giving them the opportunity to have business contacts and the wider French-Serbian business community.
The French-Serbian Chamber of Commerce has launched this programme in order to support entrepreneurship by making its expertise to contribute to the development of startups. Also, the Chamber transmitted in this way and the best French business practices, given that technological innovation and support startups one of the priorities of the current economic policy in France. This is corroborated by the plan of the city of Paris that in April this year opened the largest incubator for startups in the world named Station F in the former railway station Halle Freyssinet. The project is estimated at over 200 M euros, the works are already in progress, a new incubator will cover 34,000 square meters. The French government hopes that in this way to attract over 1,000 local and foreign startups and create more than 4,000 jobs.
For the competition for the “Startup Accelerator” of Franco-Serbian Chamber of Commerce all the startups that were founded more than one year ago and entrepreneurs to 40 years of age, residing in Serbia can apply. The teams of up to three people, of which more than one foreign citizen may apply. The competition is open to projects in all industries, but they are strongly advised to engage in some ways modern technology and possibly to be orientated to the global market.
Registration is done by filling out a questionnaire on the website of the Chamber www.ccfs.rs