Ukrainian startups which have been closed during the period of war can be counted on one hand, while new deals are in total more than 80. Forbes Ukraine made a survey with investors in order to answer the questions about new projects.
As of July 2023, the surveyed funds had at least 343 investments. The number of startups is smaller, as several survey participants invested in some companies once.
“None of the Ukrainian projects have closed or stopped growing,” says Dmytro Bilash, managing partner of the Digital Future fund. 90% of startups in the portfolio of one of the most productive domestic venture capital players are Ukrainian. But Bilash’s answer is typical of the industry in the 17th month of full-scale war, Forbes reports.
The only wartime loss was Seadora, a fresh fish delivery service from SMRK’s portfolio owned by Alexander Kosovan. After losing the Ukrainian market, founder Andriy Drohobytsky tried to find new funding and relaunch the startup in Dubai, but in the end, the fund had to write off the investment. Three other projects from the Ukrainian Startup Fund (USF) orbit are also on pause – inactive but not closed. These are 4Comfortshoes, an online shoe selection service, Monor, a developer of 3D-printed glasses, and GeoDesign, an analytics service for urban planning.
At least 83 deals with Ukrainian projects have been closed since February 24, 2022. Some of them have not yet been announced. Four of the top five funds with the largest number of “military” investments are newcomers, founded less than two years ago. In the 18 months since the founding of Geek Ventures by Belarusian Igor Makhanka and Odesa entrepreneur Vadym Rogovskyi, the fund has invested in 31 projects, almost a third of which have Ukrainian funders. Geek Ventures invested in six out of nine of them after the Russian attack, Rogovsky says.
The fly in the ointment is that investors who invest in Ukrainian companies are mostly familiar with the landscape. Poland’s Inovo VC, raising its third €100 million fund, has announced its readiness to invest up to 40% of its funds in Ukrainians. The fundraising plan was even exceeded: in June 2023, €105 million was raised for funders from Central and Eastern Europe.
There are no deals with Ukrainian projects in the portfolio, except for AllSet and Preply, which were funded before the war, a representative of Inovo VC told Forbes. However, it is possible that they will appear in the not too distant future. The situation is similar with the Ukrainian Phoenix Fund, a €50 million French fund announced by French President Emmanuel Macron back in December 2022. “The fund is not yet active, we will start investing no earlier than the end of the year,” explains managing partner Dominique Piotet.
