Ukrainian tech sector in wartime (July Edition)

On 24 February, Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. After 8+ years of occupation of parts of Luhansk and Donetsk regions and attempted annexation of Crimea (aggression that had already killed thousands of Ukrainians), Putin’s regime crossed an unthinkable line, moving the Russian army into brutal large-scale warfare, an invasion the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Europe since World War Two.

Ukraine’s tech sector has had to adapt to the realities of war but continues to operate at almost full capacity despite the extraordinary conditions, demonstrating colossal resilence. Read TechUkraine’s digest of 1.07-31.07.2022 and dig deeper into:

• Analytics: Ukrainian tech ecosystem during war
• Ministry of Digital Transformation: wartime projects & initiatives
• Wartime scaling up: new offices in Ukraine and globally
• Venture capital and investments in wartime
• Tech Ecosystem news during aggression 
• Featured Articles via global media 
• Podcasts

Analytics: Ukrainian tech ecosystem during war 

IT Research Resilience by Lviv It Cluster – Impact of the war on Ukraine’s IT industry growth: Export revenue of the Ukrainian IT industry may reach USD 8.5 billion by the end of the year, which is 20% more than last year. Even if some Ukrainian IT specialists start paying taxes outside of Ukraine, the export revenue will still reach USD 7.4-7.8 billion. About 7,000 IT professionals joined the ranks of the Armed Forces or Territorial Defense.Among surveyed IT professionals, 57% want to live in Ukraine even if they have an opportunity to emigrate. 73% of surveyed IT experts noted that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, their income has increased or remained at the level of February 2022 – read

IT export by Opendatabot: The IT sector is the only one industry in Ukraine that demonstrates the growth in 2022 – 27% (January-May 2022) – read

Pulse of Cyber Defense by the State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection of Ukraine (June, 2022): Statistics of cyberattacks, H1 2022 – 802, H1 2022 – 548; in total for six months – 1350 – read

Salaries of Ukrainian IT specialists by DOU (summer 2022): developers – mediana in June 2021 is $3400 – $3300 was in December 2021, 38% had to relocate since the beginning of full-scale invasion, 28% live in another region of Ukraine, only 4% of IT specialists lost jobs during war, 9% – women in tech; testers, PM, HR, DevOps, Data Scientists – 92% of specialists keep working full-time now, just 5% lost jobs during wartime

Djiinni: How the war impacted the tech job market in Ukraine (Market update, Julу 22th). Candidates +240% y/y, job postings -21% y/y. There are 54k candidates’ profiles on Djinni, up 50% from January  – read

Sustainability Report for 2021 by IT company Intellias: In 2021, Intellias focused on “Sustainable Development Goal #5: Gender Equality” and “Goal #11: Sustainable Development of Cities and Communities”. In 2020, the company employed 1,570 people, 25% of them were women. In 2021, this number grew to 27.7% – read

Association Implementation Report on Ukraine by the European Commision: Ukraine has continued to make significant progress in the area of digital transformation. In some instances this has already contributed to a more efficient and transparent government and the fight against corruption. Ukraine was among the first countries whose digital COVID-19 certificates were recognised by the EU. More than 14 million Ukrainian citizens use the “Diia” platform. Available digital services are growing. The Law on Electronic Communications and the Law on the National Telecoms Regulator, which both entered into force in mid-February 2022, were necessary steps on the way for an in-depth sectoral reform and approximation with the EU Digital Single Market acquis. New EU-Ukraine dialogues on Green Deal and cyber security offered good examples of expanding cooperation in areas of joint strategic interest – read

Ministry of Digital Transformation – wartime projects & initiatives 

• IT Army of Ukraine: Over 240,000 people have joined a group called IT Army on the social media platform Telegram.
• World’s first Army of Drones: jointly with the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and UNITED24. More than UAH 510 million had already been collected
• Digital diplomacy front: communication with Big Tech companies (Elon Mask & Starlink, Palantir, Meta, Amazon, etc), Digital4Freedom initiative
• Diia app in wartime: not just e-documents and identification of citizens at checkpoints; now it is also the opportunity to donate the army; e-vorog reports on the movement of the enemy’s military troops and hardware; application for compensation for property damage caused by Russia’s all-out war; 24/7 access to TV and radio; e-bayraktar game – the possibility of imagining yourself as a Bayraktar operator; launching Diia.pl in Poland.
• International Legion of Internet Army: a government-led unit for spreading facts about the ongoing conflict against the Kremlin’s propaganda
• MetaHistory Museum of War: An NFT-museum of the war of putin’s russia against Ukraine; already raised over $1,350,142 (804.68 ETH) – read
• TruthFund.com a fund to fight disinformation about the war in Ukraine – read
• Send putin to Jupiter – over 2 million donations

Wartime scaling up: new offices in Ukraine and globally

The Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers seeks to launch production of Turkish Bayraktar drones in Ukraine – read

The Ukrainian service Liki24 launched in Italy, spreading geographically and scaling up in European countries. The company is already working in Poland and Romania – read

Ukrainian developer and manufacturer of wired smart home systems i3 Engineering entered the Lithuanian market – read

Ukrainian product company IT-Enterprise has increased its presence in the MENA region. The team has opened a new office in Egypt and is building contacts with industry players in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Türkiye – read

Sigma Software Group launched a second office in Portugal – in Lisbon. The first one was launched in March 2022 in Cascais – read. Also, Sigma opened a branch in Prague, Czech Republic – read

Intellias announced opening offices in Spain and Portugal – read

Ciklum has opened a new delivery hub in Romania – read

The Ukrainian EdTech startup Headway has opened an office in London – read

The largest private Ukrainian postal service Nova Poshta plans to start operations in Poland (by the end of the year), in Slovakia, and Romania – read

Ukrainian tech company Proxet opened office in Wrocław, Poland – read

Poland announced the creation of the “Valley of Drones” to accelerate innovation in this area. The idea was discussed in Warsaw by representatives of Poland, Ukraine, and the United States of America at the Warsaw Drone Summit conference – read

Ukrainian woman tech community WTECH launched in Amsterdam, additionally to representative offices in London, Lisbon, and Berlin – read

Venture capital and investments in wartime 

Cofounded by Ukrainian Unstoppable Domains has closed $65 million in Series A funding at a $1 billion valuation – read

Ukrainian Preply raised $50 million USD in its Series C, amassing more than USD $100 million in investments since inception – read

International DataArt with offices in Ukraine announced that it has secured a $75 million minority growth investment from FTV Capital – read

Ukraine- and Dutch-based global print API platform Cloudprinter.com has secured €7M in a Seed round of funding – read

Ukrainian YouScan raised a $2M follow-on financing round from Kinnevik & VNV Global AB – read

Founded by Ukrainians Adwisely (ex-RetargetApp), an ad automation platform for e-commerce DTC brands, announced that it has raised $1.5 million Seed Round – read

Blockchain development agency EvaCodes raises a $500,000 round from the Web3-oriented hypra fund – read

7 Ukrainian Startups were funded by “Support Ukrainian Startups NOW” – read

Spanish Demium launched a new Central Europe Talent Fund I FCRE to invest in CEC talents – read

Tech Ecosystem news during aggression 

The Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska won the highest honor for a mathematician Fields Medal. She is just the second woman to receive this honor in the medal’s 86-year history – read

Ukrainian scientist Ihor Cherniukh won the Swiss Nanotechnology PhD Award 2022 within Swiss NanoConvention – read

Eight Ukrainian Startups will be presented at TechBBQ 2022 in Denmark: S,Lab, GIOS, zeelly, Akurateco, i3 Engineering, SmartZavod, Qella, AirLaw  – read

Ukrainian MANNA Metaverse and Kray Technologies will present Ukrainian at the Silicon Valley Grand Finale of the Startup World Cup in September – read

Ukrainian government and Amazon will introduce AI in courts to make decisions on administrative violations – read

Meta Blueprint in partnership with Ministry of Digital Transformation created custom online courses for Ukrainian small businesses – read

Ukraine is technically ready for mutual recognition of digital signatures with the EU: the Ukrainian electronic signature recently successfully passed testing at the eSignature Validation Plugtests 2022 – read

Ukraine Startup Integration Program in France by UVCA, together with EuraTechnologies, Free Ukraine Foundation, Alliance Technologies and the support from the Mayor of Lille – read

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Ukrainian State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) to strengthen collaboration on shared cybersecurity priorities – read

How Ukrainian Cyber Army Was Created by CyberUnitTech – read

Ukraine As One Of The Biggest Force Of European Space Agency – read

The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky is on the cover of WIRED UK – read

Founded by Ukrainians DRESSX released digital collection on Meta Avatar Store – read

Ukrainian tech founders launched the startup studio Kiss My Apps  – read

Lviv IT Cluster purchased a new batch of Starlink terminals – read

Kyiv-based MacPaw launched SpyBuster for iOS – read

Ukrainian GreenAge is preparing to launch its new b2b2c product, called sort, the world’s first pre-paid digitized waste management service – read

Viktoriia von Rosen Became TechUkraine Ambassador In Germany – read

TechUkraine became the official Community Partner of the VDS | Valencia Digital Summit – read

TechUkraine became the official Media Partner of the 1st annual European Metaverse Awards – read

Featured stories in Ukrainian tech media

LigaTech: Interview with Taras Chmut, Came Back Alive Fund, about the purchasing Bairaktars for Army– read

Forbes Ukraine: How work the Ukrainian Preply, recently raised $ 50 MLN – read

AIN: Ukrainian business prospects abroad – the case of ride-hailing service Uklon – read

SpekaMedia: Interview with co founder of new Ukrainian unicorn airSlate Vadym Yasynovskyi – part 1, part  2

Dev.ua: What are the IT demands for Ukrainian Aerorozvidka, non-profit organization that promotes creating and implementing netcentric and robotic military capabilities for the Ukrainian security and defense forces – read

The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine’s crypto fundraisers undeterred by crypto market crash – read

TechUkraine: interview, reportages, longreads 

• Valentine Hrytsenko, CMO Ajax Systems: “Our new Ukrainian plant employs more than 1,200 people and produces 550,000 devices monthly” – read
• Andrey Golubinskiy, ex-Apostera: Is Ukraine a startup nation? – read
• Artem Myrhorodskyi, GreenAge: Recovery Urgency Plan for Ukraine: What’s wrong with the government’s vision – read
• Vlad Tislenko, SMRK VC: How To Support Ukrainian Startups In Wartime – read
• Yegor Aushev, CyberUnit.Tech: How We Saved a Hacked Startup: Lessons from Hyper Growth – read

Featured Articles via global media

• TechCrunch: Look out Putin — Ukrainian woman invents ‘solar for balconies’ to wean Europe off Russian gas – read
• TNW: Ukrainian whose startup de-aged Luke Skywalker on stopping deepfake disinformation – read
• Sifted: Three Ukrainian entrepreneurs launch VC firm to boost the country’s tech scene – read
• Atlantic Council: Ukraine’s tech excellence is playing a vital role in the war against Russia – read
• Le Monde: The high-tech sector in Ukraine, between survival and innovation – read
• AP: In Ukraine war, a race to acquire smarter, deadlier drones – read
• NYT: Inside Ukraine’s Thriving Tech Sector – read
• Fast Company: A Ukrainian CMO explains how he helped fight Russia while keeping a company afloat – read
• EU-Startups: Supporting Ukraine’s startup ecosystem: An inside look into the EIC’s €20 million fund – read
• InCyber: Ukraine wants to become the “most digital country in the world” – read
• Tech.eu: Prague-based Presto Ventures will invest in Ukrainian startups – read

Podcasts & videocasts

• EURACTIV podcast about key takeaways of cybersecurity that can be drawn from the war in Ukraine with Ginny Badanes, Microsoft’s senior director of the Democracy Forward – listen
• Ahead of Its Time series by Ukrainian Setapp and American Pacific Content
• “The strong kitchen cabinet” by dev.ua with Denys Gurak, cofounder of Ukrainian-American BioTech startup ADAM Bioprinting – watch
• Blockquote by Andrii Degeler: Oleksandr Kosovan – MacPaw, Alex Serdiuk – Respeecher, Dmitry Dubrovskyi – Uklon, Yaroslav Azhnyuk – Petcube, SpendWithUkraine
• Kunsht podcast – military tech season (cyber, drones), also on YouTube
• Podcast by Ukrainian Weekly & Mike Buryk with Natalia Brandafi, COO at the international package and freight delivery service for Eastern Europe Meest-America – listen
• DOU Podcast: how Ukrainian IT operating in wartime – listen

Via TechUkraine, NYT, Emerging Europe, WIRED, TechCrunch, Forbes, Bloomberg, Sifted, Tech.eu, VICE, Reuters, Fast Company, AP, EU-Startups. EURACTIVE, Atlantic Council, TNW, TIME, WSJ, The Washington Post, InCyber, DOU, dev.ua, SPEKA, AIN, UBN, Vector, Speka, The Kyiv Independent, etc

Read the first wartime edition (February-March) here

Read the second wartime edition (April) here

Read the third wartime third edition (May) here

Read the third wartime fourth edition (June) here

Support Kyiv-based TechUkraine team here.

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