TechUkraine Digest #1/2021
What has happened in the Ukrainian tech market in January 2021?
R&D and new offices in Ukraine
London-based digital banking service Revolut, co-founded by Ukrainian Vladyslav Yatsenko, plans to open an R&D office in Ukraine seeking engineers, developers, and recruiters. – read
American ride-sharing company Lyft is looking for tech stuff in Ukraine. Previously Novoye Vremya reposted that Lyft has already registered a legal entity in Ukraine. The company is called Lyft Ukraine LLC and is run by Vitalii Zadorozhnyi. – read
Belorussian custom software development company SoftTeco is opening a new development center in Ukraine. The company is actively hiring developers and planning to hire about 30 tech specialists for the Ukrainian office this year – read
Ukrainian manufacturer of smart security systems Ajax Systems expands its geography and opens its third R&D office in Vinnytsia. It is planned to gather a full-fledged team (8-10 specialists) in Vinnytsia for developing new Ajax security devices independently of Kyiv and Kharkiv offices. – read
Venture capital and startups:
Ukrainian company airSlate (ex-PDFfiller) raised a $40 million round led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, General Catalyst, and Highsage Ventures. The total amount of $80 million in capital raised to date – read
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is buying Ukrainian DB Best Technologies, a leader in database cloud migration, data services management, application modernization, and delivering solutions for new services like analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) – read
AI-powered tool for Real Estate Developers and Agents Propertymate, founded by Ukrainians, has raised $1 mln by Pragmatech Ventures – read
IdeaSoft, a Kharkiv-based IT consulting company, has become a part of Swedish-Ukrainian software company Sigma Software Group, while securing its identity, structure, and approaches – read
UK-based events booking platform Poptop Events, founded by Ukrainians Ignat Thorovsky and Eugene Shestopal, bags £440K in funding from existing investors, DSW Ventures and NorthStar Ventures – read
Ukrainian startup Raccoon.Recovery, a goal-oriented physical rehabilitation tool based on video gaming, Big Data, and AI, has raised 660K euro from the EU program Fast Track to Innovation – read
Ukrainian HR-tech startup Hirio raises around €330K pre-seed funding on its way to automating hiring, led by Pipedrive unicorn founders. The founders decided to raise money to grow more aggressively on the international markets – read
Ukrainian Startup Fund announced the winners of the 20th Pitch Day – 5 startups on a pre-seed stage will receive $25,000 grants – OSBB Online, ComeBack Mobility, obimy, LineBar, MindSelf – read
Israeli Playtika with 3 offices in Ukraine (Kyiv, Dnipro, Vinnytsya) skyrockets 34% after raising $1.88 billion in IPO. The share price exceeded the company’s initial targeted range of between $22 to $24, making the offering the largest Israeli IPO in history. – read
Ukrainian Max Levchin, CEO of the buy-now, pay-later fintech company Affirm, Inc. is fintech’s newest billionaire according to Forbes. He has an 11% stake in the company is now worth $2.7 billion (after raising $23.6 billion in IPO) – read
Ecosystem news:
Ukraine is up 2 positions and is in TOP30 according to the Global Cities Ranking of Startup Ecosystem represented yesterday by StartupBlink which ranks the startup ecosystems of 100 countries and 1000 cities – read
Kyiv is 20th according to the rating the 50 Best Places For Remote Working In 2021 by Big 7 Islands – read
6 Ukrainian tech companies were shortlisted in the rating the Best 50 employers in Ukraine by Forbes Ukraine and Work.ua – Intellias, DataArt, N-iX, SoftServe, EPAM Ukraine, GlobalLogic – read
4 Ukrainian companies were featured in Golden Kitty Awards 2020 by Product Hunt: Petcube, IOON, Reface, MacPaw – read
Google announces Ukrainian Reface app one of 21 things saving 2021– read
The Ukrainian Wikipedia was visited by 21% more in 2020 than in 2019. During a month, it was visited over 90 million times, which is 26% more than in 2019. This allowed the Ukrainian Wikipedia to rank 17th among all countries. – read
Ukrainian football club Dynamo Kyiv is ready to launch its own cryptocurrency to increase revenue and attract more fans, according to U.S. blockchain company Moonwalk that is helping Dynamo with the project. – read
Ukrainian mobility infrastructure company Meredot is #GlobalFinalists of Best Newcomer by Global Startup Awards – read
Sustainable startup Greenbin.app, founded by Ukrainian, was shortlisted in the top 20 of this year’s Green Alley Award. Previously the team won the title of StartupOfTheYear within Virtual PowerUp! Country Final Poland – the biggest competition for start-ups in Central and Eastern Europe whose products in the fields of energy, smart technologies, mobility are solving today’s problems with tomorrow’s technology. – read
Ukrainian startup 3DLOOK was featured by VOGUE’s as one of the leading fashion tech companies that are transforming the apparel industry – read
Ukrainian cybersport team Natus Vincere – NaVI is the champions of the European tournament BLAST Premier: Global Final and earning $ 600,000 for their performance – read
Ukrainian unicorn Grammarly, an AI-based writing assistant that helps write clearly and effectively, has presented the first annotated GEC (Grammatical Error Correction) dataset for the Ukrainian language which helps to speed up the development of voice assistants and online systems for correcting grammar in the Ukrainian language; increase the number of open tools for NLP learning of Ukrainian – read
Ukrainian creative agency Port.agency launched the first art marketplace Hypermarket of Culture – an e-commerce platform for art institutions and artists to simply upload creative products (events, services, etc), promote and sell them, reaching&engaging the audience online, and generating creative experiences – read
The Ministry of International Affairs and the Ukrainian Institute launched portal Ukraine.ua about talented people, spectacular nature, an original culture, and undiscovered treasures. The site shows opportunities for exploring, studying, and investing in Ukraine – discover
As part of a joint project, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources in synergy with Google Ukraine has created virtual tourist routes and panoramas for 10 more national nature parks in Ukraine. Everyone can make an extraordinary virtual journey along ecological trails, river routes, visit the Rocks of Dovbush or Dead Lake, Buk (Beech – ed.) Spring or St. Nicholas Estate – read
The Government supported the initiative of the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture to train unemployed Kyiv residents in IT specialties. The proposed tool will allow meeting part of the needs of Ukrainian IT companies in qualified specialists. And Ukrainians who have lost their jobs will study prestigious IT specialties – read
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed Law №3014 “On Electronic Communications”, adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on December 16, 2020, which is designed to regulate market relations – between the state, service providers, and users, and also bring Ukraine closer to European standards in the field of electronic communications. – read
Reports:
European Unicorns by Benedict Evans – read
2021: The year of Deep Tech by Dealroom – read
The State of Fintech in Europe: report (January 2021) by Tech.eu and Finstar – read
Overview 2020: Ukrainian Tech Ecosystem on the road ahead – read
Champions of inventions: TOP 100 patents by Ukrainian inventors for global companies by Innolytics Group, DLA Piper, Advanter Group – read
Salaries of Ukrainian by DOU – read
Reputation report of Ukrainian IT companies by IT Ukraine Association, MZ Hub, LOOQME – read
Salaries of Ukrainian developers, testers, PM, HR, DevOps, Data Science, and others by DOU (winter 2020-2021)
Via Forbes, UKTN, EU-Startups, TechCrunch, BusinessInsider, TechUkraine, AIN, KyivPost, DOU, Sifted, KyivPost, DOU, Liga, Vector
