Community Builder at LIFT99 Kyiv Hub
Inna Shylova is a community builder at LIFT99 Kyiv Hub — the top startup community space in the heart of Kyiv. She oversees talent matching, network building, and event development for the local ecosystem.
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Disclaimer: all content within the Startup Ecosystem Summary and Editor’s Guide sections is written by and reflects the personal perspective of the guest editor. The guest editor is not responsible for content within the Country Snapshot and Community sections, as much of this content is compiled from external sources and does not necessarily reflect the guest editor’s view.
Today, Ukraine has 400+ startups and the number is consistently growing (to see a detailed view of Ukrainian startups, check out this list published by LIFT99 Kyiv). Local success stories include Ajax Systems, Allset, Attendify, Competera, Depositphotos, Grammarly, Invisible.io, MacPaw, People.ai, Petcube, Preply, Readdle, Restream, YayPay, and YouScan. These 15 rockstars were recognized on the Ukrainian Startups Wall of Fame in 2019 as symbols of the development of a value-driven ecosystem–an ecosystem of and for Ukrainian startups with an impact on the local economy, on the country’s general image, on public well-being and standard of living, and of course, on the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Kyiv in particular has the potential to turn the Ukrainian startup scene into one that’s as vibrant and buzzing as Berlin or Tel Aviv, if not more. There are numerous events happening every day including empowering hackathons, workshops, meetups, conferences – many of them with well-known international names. New co-working spaces are springing up like mushrooms after rain and the waiting lists for some of the more popular central spaces are being filled before the doors open. Alongside incubators and accelerator programs, these co-working spaces help young startups to mature and grow into strong tech companies.
Ukraine has a huge pool of amazing talent. The technical side of tech has always been promising in Ukraine, with Ukrainian developers being in the top-10 for hiring demand. The challenge is to leverage this talent to boost the entrepreneurial spirit in the country. Today, the Ukrainian startup ecosystem is growing fast. A few years ago, Ukraine was mostly known for its amazing developers, but startups are now recognizing their Ukrainian roots. More and more founders are eager to start developing products locally, inspiring others to follow.
In terms of the challenges ahead, the investment scene is a sensitive topic in Ukraine due to the bad reputation of the country in terms of the economy, corruption, and political conflicts. However, raising a seed-round in Ukraine is quite feasible nowadays. Some of the experienced Ukrainian founders have turned to make angel investments themselves and are giving back to the community this way. Not all rounds are coming from locals, but it’s expected that more of the upcoming rounds will come from outside of Ukraine, helping local startups enter the global scene.
Editor’s choice of the country’s top 10 emerging tech startups.
Design Marketplace
Kyiv
Legal Tech
Kyiv
Edtech
Kyiv
Sextech
Kyiv
HR Tech
Kyiv
Artificial Intelligence
Kyiv
Gaming
Kyiv
HR Tech
Kyiv
Foodtech
Kyiv
Digital Stationary
Kyiv
Editor’s pick of which ‘Featured Startup’ is especially worth following and why.
Editor’s choice of the industries with the most potential for technology disruption and growth.
Editor’s perspective of the maturity level of talent in the ecosystem.
Editor’s commentary on how the country’s culture and history have impacted the ecosystem.
Ukraine is home to more than 120,000 IT professionals – most of them are developers. The favorable price-to-quality ratio and quality talent makes Ukraine one of the primary destinations for tech giants like Microsoft, Boeing, and Magento to outsource their software development needs.
To put things in perspective, the average salary in Ukraine is about US$350, while the average salary in IT is US$2000. This is the reason why technology and English courses are becoming widespread and the amount of ‘switchers’ – people who move from other specialties to IT – is growing exponentially. The IT sector currently accounts for approximately 3.5% of Ukraine’s GDP and promises to reach almost 9% by 2025 according to the IT Ukraine Association’s report released in January 2018.
Ukraine’s challenging situation, both economically and politically, has raised a young generation of hopeful reformers. It’s a generation full of motivation and willpower – the people who are ready to be the change in the country. Combined with the abundance of tech talent, it’s not a surprise that startup success stories have started to emerge.
Interested in becoming more involved in this ecosystem and connecting with local ecosystem leaders? Let us know.
AVentures Capital (Kyiv): Focus: SaaS; investments: A-B rounds ($500k - $2 million), invested in: Augmented Pixels, Petcube, Bookimed, CoreValue, Influe2, depositphotos
Chernovetskyi Investment Group (Kyiv): Focus: AR/VR; investments: seed/A-round ($100k - $2 million); invested in: Zakaz.uа, Doc.ua, Eda.ua, Softcube, Kray Technologies
Digital Future (Kyiv): Focus: digital marketing, advertising, artificial intelligence, security, internet of things, SaaS, marketplaces ; investments: $50-$400k; invested in: Attendify, Petcube, Promorepublic, Serpstat
Genesis Investments (Kyiv): Focus: machine learning technologies; investments: seed-US$5 million; invested in: Better Me, Liki24, Mate Acedemy
TA Ventures (Kyiv): Focus: artificial intelligence or machine learning; investments: $150-$500k; invested in: Liki24, Mate Acedemy
LIFT99 Kyiv Hub (Kyiv): To help startup teams rocket, LIFT99 organizes and hosts events that align with a startup-community vision, offers value with know-how, helps make crucial connections, and supports startups on their path to global growth. With our broad hand-picked community network, LIFT99 organizes over 250 yearly events designed for co-growing, knowledge-sharing, and collaboration across the international startup ecosystem. The startup hub provides: regular office hours with top investors; practical workshops/roundtables/lectures with the coolest top-notch speakers and mentors; matchmaking events; community minglings and lunches for networking.
UNIT.city (Kyiv, Kharkiv): Unit City is an innovation park with a concentration of companies, startups, students, professionals and research laboratories. Additionally, Unit City launched an accelerator program called Sector X.
Growth Marketing Stage (Kyiv)
LIFT99 Kyiv Startup Awards (Kyiv)
SaaS Nation (Kyiv)
LIFT99 Kyiv Events (Kyiv)
Silicon Drinkabout Kyiv (Kyiv)
Startup Grind Kyiv (Kyiv)
UNIT.City Events (Kyiv)
TechUkraine: A nation-wide platform, uniting key Tech players to develop the ecosystem. TechUkraine is a spin-off from the Export Strategy for IT Sector, initiated by the MEDT (Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine), supported by the GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH) and realized according to the ITC methodology.
Ukrainian Startup Fund: The Ukrainian Startup Fund (USF) is a state owned fund launched by the initiative of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. The mission is to support innovation projects and help the most talented Ukrainian entrepreneurs create successful companies at scale.
National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine (NULES) Startup School Program (Kyiv)
Startup University (Odesa)
Yep Entrepreneurial University Courses (Country-wide)
Check out our Global Startup Ecosystem Database to discover top startups and ecosystem resources around the world!
*Updated with latest available data based on listed source.
*Updated with latest available data based on listed source.
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