The past year has been difficult for startups everywhere, but running a company in Ukraine during the Russian invasion comes with a whole different set of challenges. Despite hard wartime, Ukrainian delegation represents at global innovators gathering CES 2023 in Las Vegas.
- Ivan Osadchyy, founder of knopka: “Two of our hospitals we operated before are ruined already and one is still occupied. So this is the biggest challenge. The second challenge is for production and our team because they are shelling our electricity system and people are hard to work without lights, without heating in their flats. We are still working and operating because hospitals are open and we need to support them and provide efficiency and safety for patients as well.”
- Karina Kudriavtseva of the government-backed Ukrainian Startup Fund, says that, like knopka, all of the country’s startups have kept going since Russia’s invasion almost a year ago.
- Valentyn Frechka, cofounder of Releaf Paper: “When this war happened and we located our company to France, we have found a lot of new partners and we have raised fundraising. We have raised the money for our needs. So it really makes us more open for the world.”
Read more via The Associated Press
Organization of the Ukrainian delegation at CES 2023 became possible due to the joint work of Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA), Ukrainian Startup Fund with USAID Competitive Economy Program in Ukraine (USAID CEP), Western NIS Enterprise Fund, Global Innovation through Science and Technology and Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. Information partner: TechUkraine.
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Support Ukraine:
- Come Back Alive is one of the largest charitable foundations that supports Ukrainian soldiers, founded by the IT specialist Vitaliy Deynega. The organization collected more than 210 million UAH (more than $7M) in 2014.
- MacPaw Development Fund
- KOLO fund
- UNITED24
- Aerorozvidka