Welcome to Mariupol: Mariupol is the largest city on the coast of the Sea of Azov in Ukraine. A multicultural city of Greek-Ukrainian origin with the warmest sea in Ukraine. Explore Mariupol, which received in 2019 two smart city awards “Startup City” and “Best City Transport Model”!
About this city
Mariupol IT Cluster is an association of leading IT companies, startups, IT schools and the incubator, that have united for the sake of progressive Mariupol ecosystem growth and investment environment improvement.
In 2014, the IT ecosystem of the city was affected by military actions. But in 2016 the city received a new breath and began active IT sector development. The city has a very active IT community, which organizes large events, training programs, roadshows.
At the moment, Mariupol is the most progressive city in Donbas. The startup community develops actively in the city. In 2019, the city received two smart city awards “Startup City” and “Best City Transport Model”.
Among Mariupol startups, there are products that are used by the whole country:
- SWEET.TV – a service for viewing video content, TV shows, films and TV channels.
- Mofy.life – online photo album designer. A franchise of urban sites https://citysites.ua/
- The city bot Nazar and the medical bot Marta.
- startups in e-commerce for platforms like Shopify. The Shopify community is actively developed in the city. Among this community are developers and designers, who provide application development services.
Every year, the city hosts a large conference – MRPL IT Conf, and since 2019 – the annual investment forum has been held in the city.
Every summer, a music festival takes place on the shore of the Sea of Azov (up to 15,000 people from all over Ukraine taking part). And every spring Mariupol hosts the Gogolfest art festival.
Tap into Mariupol Tech ecosystem!
News
Here selected links to dive into the Ukrainian startup ecosystem: AIN, MC Today, NA Chasi, KYIV post, Business Ukraine, DOU,
Azov Sea Region in our focus
2019
Useful Information
Population: 440 367 (2019)
Average monthly salary: $650
IT companies in Mariupol:
Startups:
Coworking spaces and Hubs
Communities
Incubators and Accelerators
Tech events
Settling as a founder
To open a company in Mariupol, you will open an LLC in Ukraine as a subsidiary of your foreign parent company, which will then hire IT professionals either as salaried employees based on labor agreement or based on a freelance agreement (in most cases, there will be a mix of such arrangements). This option can be useful for long term projects in Ukraine when you are planning to establish an office and hire a large number of IT professionals.
Watch about Doing IT business in Ukraine here.
Taxes
Under Ukrainian legislation, Ukrainian residents pay taxes in Ukraine on their worldwide income, whereas non-residents are subject to taxation only in respect of their Ukrainian-source income. For a full overview of the Ukrainian Tax System check Tax Guide 2019.
According to the Who is Who on The Ukrainian Investment Market, 33 active funds are operating in Ukraine. 5 of those are incubators and accelerators, 1 corporate fund, 19 venture capital funds, 8 private equity funds.
Also, you can see Foreign Investors in Ukrainian Startups as of August 2018. Here are investment funds which deal with startups:
There are Ukrainian investment funds which deal with startups:
- Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA)
- Ukrainian Startup Fund
- QPDIGITAL
- The Untitled Ventures
- UAngel Community of Ukrainian business angels
- AVentures Capital
- TA Ventures
- U.Ventures
- Western NIS Enterprise Fund
- Digital Future
- Wanna Biz
- D2N8
- Dragon Capital
- Horizon Capital
- Chernovetskyi Investment Group
- SMRK VC Fund
- Imperious Group
- TMT investments
- Almaz Capital
Check how to become an investor in Ukraine.
If you are looking for professionals or want to become an employee, check next job boards:
Education
Here is a list of the most important educational centers based in Mariupol.
Mariupol Public University:
Private IT schools: