By spring 2024, the Ukrainian startup industry is estimated to be worth €28 billion, according to a recent report by Dealroom.
Ukraine, along with Poland and Estonia, is among the three largest players in Central and Eastern Europe. The 26,000 startups in the region raised €2.1 billion in 2023, bringing their total valuation to €213 billion, — Forbes Ukraine reports.
Carmoola, a British car loan service launched in 2022 with strong Ukrainian roots, is competing with Viseven for first place. Two of the four founders of the startup, Roman Sumnikov and Igor Gordiychuk, are Ukrainians, and part of the engineering team is based in Ukraine. At the beginning of the year, Carmoola closed another round of funding for £15.5 million (about $19.6 million) from a number of Western investors and Ukrainian u.ventures.
Rounding out the top three deals is OneNotary, a service that digitizes the work of American notaries. The founders have raised $5 million for scaling and signed a partnership agreement with DocuSign, a California-based digital signature platform with a capitalization of over $12.2 billion.
More than 80% of the rounds are in the early stages of Pre-Seed and Seed, which are typical for the Ukrainian ecosystem. Among them, there are usually rare and non-public investments in defense-related developments. The largest ($525,000) was raised by Himera, a manufacturer of EW-resistant radios from the new angel club United Angels Network. This is not the company’s first venture experience. Last year, it received a “test” check for $100,000 from Germany’s Freedom Fund VC, which specifically invests in military innovations.
The full article is available at Forbes Ukraine website.