Ukraine shows impressive number of investors dealing with global startups
Ukrainian Venture Capital & Private equity Association (UVCA) identified 38 active investors, which deal with global companies (mostly IT sector). According to the Techstars rate, only in Kyiv there are more investors than in Warsaw, Vienna, Oslo and Copenhagen. With deeper insight into the local investment ecosystem and actual statistics, UVCA created its own Investors Book.
Investors Book (the Book) is the first overview of Ukrainian investment market displaying current players’ activity, sectors of interest, and portfolio. According to the Book, there are 33 funds operating in Ukraine, consisting of 5 incubators and accelerators, 1 corporate fund, 19 venture capital funds, and 8 private equity funds.
During the two years of Association’s activity we’ve been building bridges between Ukrainian venture capital and private equity sectors and startup-ecosystems / private capital industries within Europe (both EU and CEE states), USA, Canada, Japan, etc., nowadays we are still working on it. In frames of such a communication, we saw the lack of relevant information about competitors and counterparties on the Ukrainian investment market. Today, we would like to introduce the new project of UVCA Research Committee – the Investors Book
Olga AfanasyevaCEO of UVCA
The Book positions UVCA as a gateway to the Ukrainian investment market for foreign investors and aims to raise awareness about country investment industry development and encourage private capital inflow into Ukrainian innovative companies. The fact the investor market in Ukraine is developing rapidly, despite of local situation, related to its openness. Ukrainian investment market players not only show a big interest to investment in other global companies (not only Ukrainian ones) but also are open to co-investment jointly with international partners.
The Investors Book is aimed to be the voice of venture & private capital in Ukraine, cause UVCA focuses at bringing the investment market players together and support collaboration between them.
According to the Investors Book statistics:
- 17 funds are ready to invest in seed startups, 11 invest in startups on A stage and 9 on B, 7 funds would invest at the pre-seed stage and 10 funds are looking for Growth stage.
- Ukrainian investment funds have 20 portfolio companies on average.
- Funds are ready to invest from 50,000 to dozens of millions USD, depending on the fund type and project stage. Thirty-four percent of the funds may invest from 100,000 to 1 million USD.
The Investors Book was created with Ukraine at heart. We want our readers at home and abroad to know about the country investment potential. More importantly, we want to create a positive image for Ukraine in the international capital arena. It is our hope that through this work we can build stronger relationships with our foreign partners and foster investment in Ukraine
Marianna YaroshNoosphere Ventures, Co-Head UVCA Research Committee
Ukraine is a very dynamic place for growing companies – with more and more investors looking for prospective targets, and more international companies moving their R&D centers to the country, we observe gradual ecosystem improvement. Ukrainian startups demonstrate strong potential for international development and new markets expansion. And we are offering them all benefits of the access to the EY global network represented in 150 countries and support of the experienced consultants in the sphere of business modeling, investment, taxation and law, performance improvement and other. We put on the table our local expertise combined with specific industry insights to identify the future leaders and to support them through the next steps of their growth journey
Alexander RomanishynLeader of EY Startup Accelerator in Ukraine
International media used to cover negative news about Ukrainian politics. At the same time, there are success stories of Ukrainian IT companies, which conquered international markets (such as Petcube, Iblazr, Jooble, Terrasoft, Ciklum etc). In order to provide a concise view on the investment market in Ukraine, and attract new players to it, the Investors Book was published.
Also UVCA has recently published its annual market overview that shows 32% growth of investment deals with Ukrainian innovative companies in 2016.