For emerging tech ecosystems, the ultimate validation remains the rigorous testing ground of Silicon Valley. Ukrainian startups, despite navigating unprecedented domestic and macroeconomic hurdles, continue to actively target global expansion. In a significant move to bridge this geographical gap, YEP Accelerator has officially announced its inaugural cohort of Ukrainian startups selected for a high-intensity, five-week offline acceleration program in San Francisco.
Scheduled to depart this autumn, the participating teams will embed themselves directly into the US tech landscape, focusing intensely on business scaling, market entry strategies, and late-stage or seed-level capital attraction. Investor appetite is already materializing; ahead of the official US launch, organizers have secured $3 million in soft commitments from partner venture funds, with the pool of prospective investors steadily expanding.
The Silicon Valley Cohort: 7 Teams to Watch
The selected startups reflect a diverse cross-section of automation, AI integration, and logistical innovation:
Almexoft — A powerful no-code platform designed for low-friction automation of complex document workflows and core business processes.
Obriy — Developers of the SURE platform, which deploys autonomous, highly specialized AI agents to autonomously manage and streamline customer support operations.
Unpitch — An innovative predictive analytics tool that simulates how an ideal target customer will respond to cold outreach messages before they are even sent.
Elomia — A clinically validated, corporate-ready AI solution for mental health delivered seamlessly via an API integration layer.
Briefkits — A multimodal AI engine built to analyze video advertisements across Meta Ads, pinpointing the precise millisecond where viewer drop-off and attention loss occur.
TaskRoom — An AI-driven virtual receptionist tailored specifically for franchise networks, capable of answering calls, responding to messages, and booking client appointments autonomously.
JetBeep — Autonomous, battery-powered smart lockers designed to optimize and simplify last-mile parcel delivery. The team locked in their spot in this batch after securing victory at the national Ukrainian final of the Startup World Cup.
The Race to Investment Readiness
The program is structured not as a standard educational tour, but as an aggressive, metrics-driven business development sprint. Pacing is critical, and the stakes are explicitly tied to financial deliverables.
“All the startups we worked with during the first stage of the program proved to be exceptionally strong. However, our objective is highly specific: ensuring that by October, they can confidently pitch to seed investors in the United States. Why does this matter? Because our goal is to return from San Francisco not simply with experience, but with finalized investment deals. To achieve this, the startups must accelerate their growth by mid-October to reach the exact inflection point that renders them fully investment ready”, comments Andriy Zaikin, CEO and Founder of YEP Accelerator.
Strategic Runway: From Washington to San Francisco
The acceleration runway kicks off on the East Coast with an extensive networking itinerary spanning Washington, D.C., and Maryland. Organized in partnership with the Emerging Technology Center at Baltimore Development Corporation, this initial leg serves as a strategic launchpad, allowing founders to establish early relationships with institutional investors and enterprise partners before heading west.
Upon arriving in San Francisco, founders will transition into a shared coliving arrangement. This immersive environment is specifically designed to eliminate operational friction, allowing founders to remain entirely focused on core business scaling, high-level networking, and embedding themselves within the local ecosystem.
Over the course of five weeks, the cohort will engage in dozens of dedicated meetings with potential clients, venture capital firms, and strategic partners. The itinerary aligns directly with major landmark events on the global tech calendar, including SF Tech Week, TechCrunch Disrupt, and the OneWay Summit.
The program will culminate on October 20th with an exclusive Demo Day at The SVB Experience Center – a premier, innovation-focused venue established by Silicon Valley Bank in the heart of San Francisco. This final presentation will serve as the ultimate platform for the startups to pitch their validated solutions directly to a curated room of international venture funds and prominent angel investors.
Program Institutional Support:
The YEP Acceleration program is implemented with the assistance of the Ukraine-Moldova American Enterprise Fund, which actively invests in competitive economic initiatives to generate robust, prosperous, and secure business opportunities.
The execution of this program and the continuous development of YEP’s acceleration capacity are supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) through its Star Venture program in Ukraine. This initiative is funded by Switzerland through the EBRD Small Business Impact Fund (Donors to the Fund include: Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Taipei China – EBRD Technical Cooperation Fund, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America).
