In line with the implementation of Article 123 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Law on the Protection of Enterprises and Knowledge Based Organizations and the Commercialization of Innovations and Inventions (PEKBOCI) was approved by the parliament on October 28, 2010. Article 5 of this law calls for a fund called the Fund for Innovation and Prosperity (later known as Iran National Innovation Fund-INIF) to be established which would be affiliated with the Supreme Council for Science, Research and Technology, and would operate under the supervision of the chairman of the council which would be the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Statute of INIF was approved by the Council of Guardians of the Constitution under the letter No. 91/3046752/ dated 16/2/2012. On November 11, 2012, the Cabinet of Ministers, based on the recommendation of the Supreme Council for Science, Research and Technology, and on the basis of Article 13 of PEKBOCI, passed INIF’s mandate.

Preparing the infrastructure necessary for the Fund, including the provision of organizational structures, guidelines, and the establishment of a credit committee and the formation of meetings of the Council of Deputies was the first step. Also the revision of proposals provided by knowledge based companies also known as New Technology Based Firms (NTBFs) began. About 25 billion Tomans were paid from the initial investment of INIF and by the end of this year 55 companies were recognized as knowledge-based companies.

Along with the increase in the number of knowledge-based companies and the great number of proposals presented to the Fund, efforts were made to develop fund teams and provide better services to applicants. During this year, more than 700 applications were sent to INIF for evaluation, and a total of more than 100 billion Tomans worth of facilities were allocated to the companies.

In 2015, INIF approved around 220 billion Tomans after evaluating more than 1200 projects. The Fund, with the focus on increasing the diversity of services needed for knowledge-based companies, sought to identify the needs of these companies for better support. One of these measures was the design of a venture capital mechanism, which we will be able to see its results in the near future.

By the end of year 2016 the number of approvals had raised by 100% and the total amount of funds approved, reached more than 1,000 billion Tomans which was due to the outstanding growth in the number (300%) and the amount of services on the basis of market development (leasing) compared with 2015. In this year, more than 380 knowledge-based product designs successfully completed the monitoring process. Setting up empowerment services to develop the educational infrastructure and capabilities of knowledge-based companies was another great achievement of this year.