2019 – What a year for Ukrainian tech startups!

According to the recently published DealBook of Ukraine by AVentures, 2019 was a record year for investment into Ukrainian tech startups. The total volume of VC and PE investment amounted to USD 544 mn. However, in line with Altfinator analysis most of the funds were attracted by companies with US presence and R&D office in Ukraine, while the majority of funding came from international VC funds.
 
At the same time, 77% of the funds were attracted by only 3 successful global companies rooted in Ukraine:

  • Grammarly (USD 1 bn valuation) – The World’s Most Accurate Online Grammar Checker.
  • GitLab (USD 2.5 bn valuation) – A single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle.
  • People.ai (USD 0.5 bn valuation) – a Revenue Intelligence SystemTM.

The funding attracted by the leaders came from the global investment funds including Iconiq Capital, General Catalyst, Goldman Sachs VC and other.
 
According to the analysis, Ukraine still lacks local funding at the early stage. Majority of early-stage funding in 2019 came from international funds. Ukrainian funds mostly contributed to only Seed rounds. Therefore, Ukrainian startups need to compete for early-stage funding globally. This often hinder the growth of Ukrainian startups but ensures the high competitiveness of the most successful ones.

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