A glimpse on the Iranian startup ecosystem

When we talk in Austria about innovation and startups, we almost always reference to Silicon Valley, London or Berlin. However, the startup ecoystem is gathering speed in other parts of the world as well. Take Iran as an example. The oil rich country is still struggling with economic growth, but on the plus side Iran has a highly educated and young population, hungry for success and in high demand for new products and services.

 

Visit to Teheran
Therefore we were more than happy to accept the invitation to the 1st International Marketing Conference on knowledge-based industries in Teheran, which took place last week. The conference was held by the Iranian Marketing Research Association (IMRA) and Innovative Consultants in cooperation with the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR), the Iran Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology and the Center for Innovation and Technology Cooperation of Iran Presidency (CITC) with the aim of transferring marketing knowledge to knowledge-based companies and promoting the necessity of market research. Our partners Alexander Rapatz and Sasan Hashemi attended the conference, with Alexander holding a keynote about venture capital investments as a go-to-market approach. On the following panel discussion he was joined by Sasan, Farhad Rasouli from the Danish platform Venture Cup and Dr. Amir Albadvi, Faculty member at the Tarbiat Modares University. The conference was co-hosted by Pirooz Malekzadeh, CEO of Innovate Consultants and Board Member of Iran Marketing Research Association, who also organized and supported Venionaire in attending side-events, such as visits to the PARDIS Technology Park and the FINEX 2016  – Iran Exhibition of Bank, Exchange & Insurance.

 

Big market with high potential
Iran may not be the first destination investors would think of when it comes to startups, but its track record is huge. Iran is one of the world’s biggest emerging markets and the startup and venture capital ecosystem is growing fast. 120-130 Million people are talking Farsi, with borders to huge and untapped countries in the Middle East and Asia. Therefore it is definitely worthwhile to keep an eye on this region.

 

Pictures provided by Innovate Consultants / Alexander Rapatz