INFRASTRUCTURE SUPPORT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF STARTUP PROJECTS IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of infrastructural components of Ukrainian startup ecosystem. Currently the Ukrainian startup market demonstrates some positive trends according to the total number of startups,  amount of venture capital investments and the overall economic value of the startups themselves. In order to support these trends, the faster development of the Ukrainian startup ecosystem is required. The startup ecosystem is considered as  a subsystem of an innovative ecosystem. One of the crucial components of the national startup ecosystem is its infrastructure. It is aimed at creating an interactive space for communication network which is important for generating startup ideas, their commercialization and transforming into successful business. Nowdays domestic startup infrastructure consists of the following components: business incubators, business accelerators, innovation parks and coworking spaces. The paper investigates their role, functions and essential features. The key factors affecting the process of the development of the national startup support infrastructure were analyzed. The infrastructure for the startup support is compared with the infrastructure for innovative entrepreneurship. The latter is presented by science parks, technoparks, innovation centers, innovative business incubators, centers for commercialization of intellectual property and business information centers. The problems related to the current state of infrastructure for innovative entrepreneurship were revealed. The role of existed infrastructure for innovative entrepreneurship in startup support was analyzed. Due to legal irregularities, lack of financial resources, poor management and low motivation of key players, its activity is rather restricted and has minimal effect on local and regional innovative entrepreneurship. Although the overall formation of startup infrastructure is characterized by positive trends, it does not fully meet the needs of the growing startup ecosystem. The perspectives of startup infrastructure development as a part of the national startup ecosystem were discussed.