Soheil Abbasi, the Deputy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and a member of the board of directors of Ham-Ava, attended the media hub of the last day of the 13th INOTEX exhibition and announced Ham-Ava’s plan to create high-yield startups.

According to the INOTEX 2024 newsroom, Abbasi said: ‘The formation of startups began from 2011 to 2016, and after that, the first symbol of investment in startups was formed. Since late 2022, the question has arisen as to what the future of the innovation ecosystem will be and where the technology and innovation ecosystem of Iran is headed. That’s why we at Ham-Ava are looking for solutions to build the future and invest in various startups.’

The board member of Ham-Ava pointed out that we do not have unicorns in Iran. Unicorns are startups valued at more than one billion dollars. Abbasi emphasized: ‘Because Iranian startups do not have much access to global resources and we face economic instability, there is also a low tendency to invest, and we witness the migration of teams and experts, becoming a unicorn has turned into a dream.’

Abbasi explained that Ham-Ava seeks to institutionalize collaborative innovation by providing innovative solutions and social, symbolic, and financial capital. He added: ‘With the new program that Ham-Ava has, we try to increase the impact of investment in the field of startups. Our effort is to replace the unicorn with the gazelle. Many innovative businesses think that those with better ideas are more successful, while an idea alone is not enough. Another criterion for business success is a specialized team.’

The Deputy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of Ham-Ava, comparing the difference between a good and an average team in startups, said: ‘In the past years, studies have shown that the gap between a team that is 90% specialized and a team that is 100% specialized is very large, and Ham-Ava in its new program thinks about creating 100% teams that have complementary skills.’ He mentioned the lack of specialized teams, a clear vision, the absence of a competitive advantage, focusing on everyday problems instead of big issues, and solutions without a competitive advantage as the challenges of startups and announced that by creating a consortium of technology gazelles, sustainable growth can be created. According to the board member of Ham-Ava, gazelles are businesses that grow by 20% annually, and this growth continues for 4 years consistently.

He concluded the program by considering it a transition from the dream of a unicorn to the reality of a technology gazelle, adding: ‘With the cooperation of industry and university, we build teams that turn into a technology gazelle within a 6 to 9-month period. In this program, teams can combine with each other and create a consortium of gazelles. Acceleration, corporate venture investment, joint entrepreneurship events, and designing an open innovation ecosystem are actions that are carried out in the effective founder program.’"