Ukraine’s startup ecosystem is among three fastest growing in CEE and is 4th largest in terms of ecosystem value, according to the 2024 ecosystem report made by Civitta, with support of u.ventures and Ukraine – Moldova American Enterprise Fund.
Ukraine’s tech industry shows significant growth despite challenges such as the ongoing war. There are now over 2,600 active Ukrainian startups with valuations tripling since 2020. It is no wonder considering the legacy of Ukrainian IT.
From 2013 to 2023 the contribution of IT to GDP increased by 5.7 times. Ukraine is home to over 346,000 IT specialists, offering a robust talent pool. Meanwhile, some Ukrainian-born startups have reached unicorn status, including Grammarly, GitLab, and Creatio. Today, at least 10 startups are approaching that status as well, Civitta’s report shows.
This report also inspired us to map out the remainder of the top 10 investments in Ukraine in 2024.
This article is part of the CEE funding mapping series. Please feel free to contact us if we missed something: [email protected].
1. Creatio (Ukraine-founded, US-based)
Founded: 2014
Stage: Unicorn
Investors: Sapphire Ventures, StepStone Group, Volition Capital, Horizon Capital
Total Funding: €257.7M
Founders: Katherine Kostereva
Vertical: CRM
About: Creatio is a low-code/no-code platform that helps automate workflows, manage customer relationships & accelerate digital transformation. It is recognized as a leader and strong performer in multiple Low-Code/No-Code and CRM reports by Gartner and Forrester. Some of their clients are industry giants such as Colgate-Palmolive, AMD, MetLife, OKI, and Top Build.
2. Carmoola
Latest round: €18.5M
Founded: 2021
Stage: Series A
Investors: AlleyCorp, InMotion Ventures, QED Investors, u.ventures, VentureFriends
Total Funding: €305.7M
Founders: Aidan Rushby, Amy McKechnie, Igor Gordiichuk, Jasper Dykes, Roman Sumnikov
Vertical: Fintech
About: Carmoola is a UK-based fintech company and direct-to-consumer lender that is disrupting the car finance industry and the car-buying process. Through its platform Carmoola offers finance options tailored to individual needs, ensuring that car buyers can make informed decisions and access their funds with ease and speed. In the October 2024, Carmoola has also announced a major debt deal with NatWest, worth £100 million. This deal will enable Carmoola to broaden and better serve its customer base, offering dealership-beating car finance rates and further enhancing the car buying experience versus traditional dealership financing.
3. Fintech Farm
Latest round: €30.8M
Stage: Series B
Investors: Bank of Georgia, Flyer One Ventures, US fintech company Solid, TA Ventures, u.ventures, and AVentures Capital
Total Funding: €38M
Founders: Dmytro Dubilet, Oleksandr Vitiaz, and Nick Bezkrovnyy
Vertical: Fintech
About: Fintech Farm is a fintech company that creates and operates digital banks in emerging markets. Being an unregulated business, Fintech Farm does not provide financial services to customers but instead partners with and relies on the license and infrastructure of local banks. Fintech Farm offers a ‘turn-key’ solution for banks. Apart from software development, Fintech Farm acts as the operator of neobanks and provides the banks with comprehensive consultancy and project management services. Fintech Farm’s projects include Leobank in Azerbaijan, Liobank in Vietnam, and is launching new products in Kyrgyzstan and India in 2024.
4. Jome (ex-NewHomesMate)
Latest round: €9.4M
Founded: 2018
Stage: Series A
Investors: Geek Ventures, Flyer One Ventures, Forefront Venture Partners, Network.VC, Roosh Ventures, Sid Venture Partners, Toloka, U.ventures, Unwritten Capital, Vesna Capital
Total Funding: €16.4M
Founders: Dan Hnatkovskyy and Sofia Vyshnevska
Vertical: Real Estate
About: Jome is an AI-powered marketplace to find, compare, and buy new construction homes in the US market. With AI they analyze data about buyers and real estate, and predict which properties customers will be most interested in. The startup received its first million in 2021 from Pragmatech Ventures. The fresh funds will allow Jome to expand its reach into more markets and improve its technology.
5. Portal AI
Latest round: €4.3M
Founded: 2023
Stage: Seed
Investors: AGI House Ventures, BBQ Capital, Broocknell Ventures, Patel family office, StratMinds VC
Total Funding: €4.8M
Founder: Volodymyr Panchenko and Mohammed (Hamudi) Naanaa
Vertical: MarTech, AI
About: Portal AI is a B2B SaaS that is designed to align brand strategy with marketing execution. Their platform ecosystem empowers small and medium-sized businesses with advanced tools to compete with larger enterprises, offering an intuitive app that provides one-click actionable advice across various business verticals.
6. Esper Bionics
Latest round: €4.8M
Founded: 2019
Stage: Seed
Investors: YZR Capital, u.ventures, EBRD, SMRK VC Fund, Ukrainian Startup Fund
Total Funding: €5.1M
Founders: Dima Gazda and Anna Believantseva
Vertical: Robotics, IoT
About: Esper Bionics is an award-winning engineering company that builds human enhancement devices by using digital signal processing, artificial intelligence, data collection, and low-power electronics. Esper Bionics’ first products are Esper Hand, an FDA-registered bionic self-learning hand prosthesis, Esper Control, a wearable brain-computer interface, and Esper Platform, a cloud-based software solution to individualize the control of wearables.
7. OneNotary
Latest round: €4.8M
Founded: 2020
Stage: Series A
Investors: Jackson Square Ventures, Digital Future, DocuSign Ventures, GoodPaper Ventures, TheLegalTech Fund, U.ventures
Total Funding: €6.8M
Founders: Ivan Zinkov and Pavlo Pechenyi
Vertical: Legal
About: OneNotary builds an online notary infrastructure that enables Remote Online Notarization (RON), in any SaaS solution within hours and helps to keep customers inside their existing working tools. A seamless, no-code integration platform with a fleet of over 10,000 notaries spread across the United States, making OneNotary a world-class notary solution.
8. Kurs Orbital
Founded: 2022
Stage: Seed
Investors: OTB Ventures, Credo Ventures, Galaxia (a fund established by CDP Venture Capital, and Obloo Ventures), In-Q-Tel and Inovo.
Total Funding: €5M
Founders: Volodymyr Usov and Vadim Vasylyev
Vertical: Space Tech
About: Kurs Orbital facilitates satellite life extension and space debris removal missions, ensuring safe and sustainable orbits for future generations. It extends human activities beyond Earth by offering on-orbit servicing, a platform that aims to be the foundation to support many future space businesses.
9. Comptera
Latest round: €2.9M
Founded: 2017
Stage: Seed
Investors: StratMinds VC, Flyer One Ventures, Geek Ventures, SMRK VC, Verras Capital
Total Funding: €7M
Founders: Oleksandr Halkin
Vertical: Ecommerce, AI
About: Competera enables retailers and brands to increase customer trust by setting and maintaining optimal price positions on a real-time basis. By continuously calculating and re-quantifying billions of possible price combinations, the platform’s deep learning algorithms minimize the enterprise clients’ financial losses, rebounding on average 6% of gross margin.
10. Choice
Founded: 2020
Stage: Seed
Investors: J&T Ventures, Presto Ventures, Reflex Capital, Seedcamp, Purple Ventures
Total Funding: €4.9M
Founder: Alex Ilyash
Vertical: HoReCa
About: Choice is an online B2B subscription-based service that allows any restaurant to create a website and set up all necessary restaurant-related business tools on a single platform with joint administration: website, applications, online menus with QR payments, table reservations, a CRM system, and much more. Additionally, the platform can be integrated with POS systems and marketplaces such as Wolt, Bolt, Glovo, Foodora, and Uber Eats.
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Other highlights
US private equity group Horizon Capital has made an undisclosed investment in marketing technology company Viseven, which serves the pharma and life sciences sectors. Viseven is headquartered in Ukraine, but has expanded since its founding in 2009 into other European countries, including France, Spain, Germany, Estonia, and Poland, as well as India, Argentina, and North America. The company specialises in omnichannel marketing and communication strategies, with an emphasis on digital technologies and artificial intelligence.
Also in 2024, NJJ, the investment company of French telecom entrepreneur Xavier Niel, officially acquired Datagroup-Volia and mobile operator Lifecell. Following this, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Finance Corporation provided $435 million to support the development of the newly formed entity. According to Datagroup-Volia CEO Mykhailo Shelemba, who will head the new platform, the acquisition is expected to bring $1.5 billion in investments to Ukraine.
