26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

In recent years due to Iran’s specific situation and obligations imposed by sanctions from one side and requirements emphasized by national policies and strategies from the other side, knowledge economy has become an important factor in the country's economic development. Therefore, a focused attention has been devoted to knowledge enterprises in Iran’s economic playground. This paper focuses on financing requests proposed by Iranian knowledge enterprises active in developing hi-tech and mid-tech in different areas of technology and tries to provide a clear picture of future developments of these technologies in the country to a set of different actors ranging from policy makers, administrators, investors and owners of knowledge enterprises. The study examines and compares a variety of services that knowledge enterprises request from Innovation and Prosperity Fund (a national financial institution established to provide financial support to Iranian knowledge enterprizes) in selected technology fields and provides an analysis of the reasons behind different requests for financing knowledge enterprises in the selected technology fields. Four areas of technology have been specifically examined including electronics and control, information technology and computer softwares, bio-technology and advanced products in different technologies. Study outputs show that information technology and computer software companies request fewer funds because their production requires less time and cost. Therfore ICT projects are not as much dependant on public funds as projects in other areas of technology. However since ICT acts as an infrastructure for other areas, it requires continuous attention and support from public sector. In conclusion, the results of this study indicate that the demand for financing and the amount of money knowledge enterprises request depends on the specific field they work in.