What has happened in the Ukrainian tech market during 3-14 of May 2021?
Venture capital and startups:
SpaceTech company Firefly Aerospace, founded by Ukrainian Max Polyakov, raised $75 million just ahead of the launch of the company’s first rocket (in June). The money comes from a group of investors including DADA Holdings, Raven One Ventures, and Canon Ball. Firefly expects to try and raise another $300 million later this year – read
Italian company Avio S.p.A will buy 10 more engines for VEGA rocket made by the Ukrainian Yuzhnoye State Design Office, one of the most well-known and recognized scientific and design companies in the world in the field of space technology development – read
Ukrainian Startup Fund announced 12 winners of 23-24th Pitch Days. Startups that received pre-seed grants ($25000): GeronCore, Supplio.io, Harmix, Horos.TECH (AGRO BI), Erudito, Ademrius, Artera,Auto BI. Seed grants ($50000): effa, Caretech.human, SmartReader, Fiway – read
Ukrainian fund Roosh Ventures, founded by Reface investors Sergey Tokarev and Denys Dmytrenko, took part in a $100 Mln investment round at a valuation of about $800 million in Oura, a Finnish maker of devices that track sleep, physical activity, and other measures of well-being – read
Ukrainian Venture fund TA Ventures and private investors club ICLUB participated in a $50 Mln round in Spanish Impress, a direct-to-consumer orthodontics startup. The Series A round was led by CareCapital along with Nickleby capital, UNIQA Ventures, and others – read
Ukrainian VC fund Adventures Lab led the $300k funding round to the Belarus-based startup EduDo, mobile learning platform with short user-generated interactive videos. The round also involved participation from the Cyprys-based company Embria and business angel Dmitry Vasilyev (investor in HyperAuditor and NordicBlocks – read
Co-founded by Ukrainian Alex Fedorov Binance launches the largest NFT marketplace that will bring together artists, creators, and investors from around the world. Also, Binance recently led the funding round for NFTb, a community-owned NFT platform that is itself built on the Binance platform – read
Ecosystem news:
14 Ukrainian founders of tech companies are among Ukraine’s TOP 100 richest people by Forbes Ukraine: Stepan Chernovetskyi (Megogo) – $470 mln, Vladyslav & Iryna Chechyotkin (Rozetka) — $545 mln, Dmytro Zaporozhets (GitLab) — $450 mln; Alexander Konotopsky, Ajax — $340 mln; Vlad Yatsenko (Revolut) — $300 mln; Max Lytvyn, Alex Shevchenko, Dmytro Lider (Grammarly) — $260 mln each; Oleksandr Kosovan, MacPaw — $235 mln; Oleg Rogynskyy, People.ai — $210 mln; Taras Kytsmey, SoftServe — $190 mln; Kateryna Kostareva, Terrasoft — $190 mln; Mukola Udyansky, Coinsbit — $180 mln; Yaroslav Lyubinets, SoftServe — $145 mln – read
Ukraine plans to join the European Space Agency, and build its own cosmodrome and launch seven satellites into orbit, said Volodomyr Taftay, the Head of the National Space Agency (First Business TV). Building on Ukraine’s rocket legacy from the Soviet era, the government has allotted $542 million to spend on the space program through to 2025 – read
The former vice president of the IT company Luxoft, Vitalii Nuzhnyi, has announced the launch of his own company, TRIOS, which will specialize in consulting and software development for foreign customers – read
Ukrainian Petcube products have 4 spots in the top 5 by USA TODAY’s Reviewed in the category “The best smart pet cameras of 2021”: Petcube Cam, Petcube Bites 2, Petcube Bites, Petcube Play 2 – read
The story of Ukrainian 3DLOOK that helped 1822 DENIM, a women’s denim brand based in New York City, reduce returns by 30% while increasing conversions by 4x using in-house invention – read
The story of V-Art, a platform that provides a comprehensive ecosystem for artists, collectors, and other art market professionals through an NFT+ marketplace, virtual exhibition technology as well as networking tools, and high-quality content – raed
Ukrainian tech giant SoftServe presented the first augmented reality app that recreates a 3D model of a wooden medieval Ukrainian castle Tustan located in the Lviv region, Ukraine – in its former glory in the rocky hillside. The uniqueness of the project is in the detailed and precise reproduction of the wooden structure of the Middle Ages castle – read
Ukrainian Aeroprakt is the global leader of light aircraft manufacturers. Founded in 1991 by aircraft designers Yuriy Yakovlev and Oleg Litovchenko, today the company is a widely-known enterprise and serial production of ultralight aircraft of various modifications. Being the top 3 world-class manufacturers that build light aircraft, the company already constructed more than 1200 projects – read
Based in Odesa and Dnipro, Tatra-Yug is the environmentally friendly Ukrainian tramcar, light rail vehicle, and streetcar producer that has technical, ergonomic, and design features in line with the best practice. The company saved the leadership position among manufacturers of trams in Eastern Europe – read
Reports:
Big Tech’s Playbook 2021 by CB Insights – read
Deloitte 2021 Global Automotive Consumers – read
Facebook games marketing report 2021 – read
The most prominent VC investors 2021 by Dealroom – read
The future of marketplaces 2021 by Dealroom – read
TechUkraine, Bloomberg, TechCrunch, DOU, The Block, AIN, UBN
