Public call

Application Deadline: November 14, 2025, at 12:00 (noon)

Public call for Smart Start

In accordance with the provisions of the Law on Innovation Activities (“Official Gazette of RS”, no. 129/2021) and the provisions of the Law on the Budget of the Republic of Serbia for 2025 (“Official Gazette of RS”, no. 94/24), as well as the Program for Allocation and Use of Funds for Subsidies to Public Non-Financial Enterprises and Organizations for 2025, which is an integral part of the Conclusion of the Government of the Republic of Serbia 05 No: 401-12938/2024 of December 24, 2024.

Innovation Fund

publishes

Public Call for the Smart Start Program

 

The goal of the Smart Start Program is to support promising teams that wish to launch their entrepreneurial careers, validate their business ideas through the development of a first prototype or a minimum viable product (MVP), as well as to demonstrate the usefulness of their products/services/technologies through concrete results that show potential for commercialization and further technological development.

Financial Support

  • Maximum amount of financing per project: up to 5,400,000 RSD
  • Fund’s participation: up to 90% of the total project budget (excluding mentoring support costs)
  • Applicant’s participation: a minimum of 10% of the budget, in cash, from private sources independent of the Fund (non-financial contributions are not eligible)
  • Additional funds for mentorship support: 600,000 RSD

Eligibility

Teams of 2 to 5 members are eligible to apply if they meet the following conditions:

  • At least 51% of team members are residents of the Republic of Serbia.
  • At least 51% of team members do not hold shares in other business entities in Serbia.

Obligations after the approval of financing

After the approval of financing, Applicants are required to:

  • establish a limited liability company (LLC) in accordance with the Law on Companies;
  • ensure that at least 51% of the proposed team members are co-founders, who at the same time must be 100% owners of the new company;
  • the founders of the new company are residents of the Republic of Serbia, who do not hold shares in other business entities, and none of the co-founders may be the legal representative of any other company, regardless of ownership status.

Examples of founder structure

  • Team of 2 members → both must be co-founders
  • Team of 3 members → at least 2 co-founders
  • Team of 4–5 members → at least 3 co-founders

The legal representative must be one of the founders.

Restrictions

  • A team member may participate in only one application and be engaged exclusively in one project within any of the Fund’s programs.
  • Applications that include team members already engaged in other Fund projects are not permitted.

Required Application Documents

  1. Applicant Statement (PDF), completed and signed by all team members.
  2. Application Form (PDF), which includes:
    • description of the proposed solution and area of application,
    • short biographies of all team members (2–5),
    • simplified budget,
    • video clip (elevator pitch, up to 3 minutes in English) presenting the concept of the product, service, or technology, and all team members.

All documentation must be submitted in the original format downloaded from the Fund’s website. Any changes to the forms will result in the disqualification of the application.Project Duration

Projects under the Smart Start Program may last a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 9 months.

Areas of Support

The Fund considers projects from all scientific and technological fields, as well as industrial sectors, with a focus on the priority domains of Serbia’s Smart Specialization Strategy:

  1. Food for the Future
  2. Information and Communication Technologies (with a specific focus on Artificial Intelligence, in line with the Strategy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence in the Republic of Serbia for the period 2020-2025);
  3. Machines and Production Processes of the Future
  4. Creative Industries

At least 50% of the available funds will be allocated to projects from these priority domains, provided there are sufficient quality applications.

Evaluation Criteria

  1. Usefulness and competitive advantage of the innovative solution
  2. Market potential
  3. Team competence

Only applications that meet all criteria will be considered.

Application Procedure

  • Each team may submit only one application.
  • Incomplete or late applications will not be considered.
  • Applications must be submitted exclusively electronically through the Fund’s portal.
  • Due to the international evaluation process, applications must be submitted in English.

Additional Information

The “de minimis” state aid rules apply to the funds that the Grant Beneficiary receives from the Fund through this Program in accordance with the Fund’s Rulebook on the Rules for Awarding State Aid.

All details on the application process can be found in the Program Manual available on the Fund’s website, in the Documentation section.

Application Deadline: November 14, 2025, at 12:00 (noon)

Contact: smartstart@inovacionifond.rs

Please use this link to apply.