Apr 29, 2021

R&D and new offices in Ukraine French Blablacar wants to open an engineering hub in Kyiv for technological and product solutions, first of all, to develop GDS — global distribution system. Previously the company bought the bus ticket service Busfor and ready to further growth – read Barcelona-based startup and the fastest-growing delivery player in Europe, Africa, and Western Asia Glovo will open an R&D center in Ukraine. The company announced a new position in Kyiv – Director of Engineering who will gather the engineering team – read The USA Globality, an AI-powered platform that revolutionizes how businesses buy and sell services, opened the R&D center in Ukraine. The company has already opened 3 positions – QA Engineer, FullStack Engineer, Backend Engineer – and will expand the presence in Ukraine, hiring dozens of tech professionals – read Innovation District ІТ Park in Lviv, a large-scale infrastructure project of the Lviv IT industry with offices for 10,000 tech employees, a multifunctional center, and research labs, attracts €81,5 Million loan by Poland’s largest state-owned bank BGK. The first stage of construction is estimated to be completed by the second half of 2023. The project is implemented with the participation of a local investor and the largest real estate fund in the world and with the support and partnership of the Lviv ІТ Cluster – read One of the world’s largest payment systems Japan Credit Bureau, or JCB, which has 141 million users in 24 countries, has entered Ukraine. JCB is now the fifth international card payment system in the country along with the U.S. American Express, MasterCard, Visa, and Chinese UnionPay – read The Ukrainian pharmaceutical group of companies Yuria-Pharm is considering the possibility of localizing vaccine production in Ukraine. A prerequisite for the development of the production of biotechnological products was the developments of its own Biotech R&D in Cherkasy, in particular, a technological platform for the development and pilot production of recombinant protein products, monoclonal antibodies – read Ukrainian e-bikes Delfast is launching the production in Ukraine based on the Kyiv radio plant. The company ran a crowdfunding campaign, landing €3.4 million to localize its e-bike manufacture and speed up delivery – read Venture capital and startups: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is providing a local currency loan equivalent to $65 million to Horizon Capital portfolio company Datagroup. This is the largest EBRD loan for Ukraine’s telecommunications, media, and technology sector – read The world’s largest road travel marketplace BlaBlaCar acquired Ukrainian Octobus, a powerful cloud service for managing bus&coach business which maintains sales and distribution, CRM, revenue management, fleet efficiency. Recently Blablacar announced to open an engineering hub in Kyiv for technological and product solutions – read The Ukrainian SpaceTech entrepreneur Max Polyakov has acquired the South African manufacturer of small satellites Dragonfly Aerospace. The deal gives Polyakov an anchorpoint in the booming but fiercely competitive market for small-satellite technology, and a potential revenue source for rocket maker Firefly Aerospace – read Ukrainian eco toothbrush effa has raised $500 000 from an angel investor with the estimation of $3,5 mln. Last year the team has become a part of the First Sustainability Batch of the Startup Wise Guys Accelerator – read Founded by Ukrainian Pavlo Eremenko, Universal Hydrogen raised a $20.5 million Series A round led by Playground Global, with an investor syndicate including Fortescue Future Industries, Coatue, Global Founders Capital – read Ukrainian delivery service Rocket is scaling up in the EU and launching the second spot in Amsterdam, Netherlands. At the end of 2020, the company announced a rebranding for going global and has started the EU expansion from Nikosia, Cyprus – read Ecosystem news: According to the Minister of Justice of Ukraine, the number of Individual entrepreneurs working in the IT sector of Ukraine is 212 547, the growth is +29 111 or 16% per year. The fastest increase is in Zakarpattya, Odesa, Rivne, and Zaporizhzhya regions – over 20% – read Forbes Ukraine shortlisted the TOP 30 Ukrainian startups – product companies with Ukrainian roots with a valuation in the range from $20 MLN: GitLab, Grammarly, Ajax Systems, People.ai, Restream, MacPaw Inc., Jiji.ng, Preply, Depositphotos, Jooble, CEX.IO, LetyShops, Kuna Exchange, Rocket, Uklon, Allset, 3DLOOK, Petcube, Reface, Rentberry, EPOM, Scalarr, Allright.com, Influ2, Liki24.com, Augmented Pixels, DMarket, Unstoppable Domains, upSWOT, Readdle – read Ukrainians at European Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe: cofounders of Reface AI, an AI-powered app where people can swap faces in the videos and GIFs in just a few seconds, Yaroslav Boiko, Den Dmitrenko, Roman Mogylnyi, and cofounders of FLAWLESS APP, a Kyiv-born mobile design startup acquired in 2020 by the US design delivery platform Abstract, Lisa Dziuba Akhmed Sulaiman – read Ukrainian Preply, an online language platform where learners can choose from over 40,000 bookable tutors to receive 1-1 live lessons and learn a language, has been nominated for the Europas Award in the category “The hottest startup of EdTech” – read Ukrainian e-bikes Delfast is among 10 rocketing European startups boosting the home delivery sector. In 2021, the startup ran a crowdfunding campaign, landing €2.8 million to localize its e-bike manufacture and speed up delivery – read Center42 released the first catalog of corporate innovation in Ukraine, which gathered over 150 showcases of 56 companies, including cooperation between the corporate sector and startups via acceleration programs, open innovation programs, hackathons – read The 12-years history of Ukrainian unicorn Grammarly, intelligent, innovative English communication assistance, by company co-founder Max Lytvyn. Grammarly is the superstar on the global stage that shortlisted at the World’s Most Innovative AI Companies by Fast Company, The Cloud 100 by Forbes, Career-Launching Companies by Wealthfront – read Interview with Ajax Systems’ CEO, Aleksandr Konotopskyi for EU-Startups: Ajax has now over 900,000 users in 120 countries across the globe and is recognized as an award-winning wireless security system in Europe. It has over 1,600 employees on board, doubling in staff size from 2019 to 2020. In 2019, it attracted over €8.4 million from Horizon Capital to ramp up global expansion and it previously received €840K million from the SMRK venture fund in 2015 – read The UK has always been one of Ukraine’s biggest partners: in 2019 trade between the UK and Ukraine was worth 1.5 billion UK pounds. Sigma Software Group, with the support of the USAID Competitive Ukraine Programme aimed to strengthen business connections and to find new opportunities between the two countries – read KyivPost wrote that Ukraine has the potential to become ‘mecca for esports’ if infrastructure improves. Today the esport is booming in Ukraine and for attracting investment to the sphere should be developing the current facilities. Current spots in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro: WePlay Esports arena, Windigo Arena, Zeus Arena, Dnipro Hotel – read 6 Ukrainian IT and telecom companies are among the 200 largest companies by tax payments to the budget in 2020 according to the magazine Rating: No. 14 – Kyivstar (₴6.7B in taxes over a year), No. 20 – Vodafone Ukraine (₴3.3 and ₴2.8 billion), No. 24 – Google Ukraine (up to $100 million), No. 44 – Ukrtelecom (between ₴1.5 and ₴1.4 billion), No. 62 – Lifecell (about ₴1 billion), No. 155 – Emarket Ukraine, LLC OLX Group (₴341 and ₴337 million) – read Government news 15 April, Verkhovna Rada adopted as a basis the draft Law No. 4303 “On Stimulating the Development of Digital Economy in Ukraine”. The draft law provides for the introduction of a number of measures to stimulate the development of the digital economy in Ukraine – ‘Diia City’ – read The GUAM International Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer will be established in the near future to become a part of the future GUAM & Partners International Innovation Development Corporation. Among the issues raised at the subgroup meeting was the cooperation of GUAM member states in the field of space technologies – read TechUkraine, MFA of Ukraine, Ministry of digital transformation has launched the month of Innovation on Ukraine.ua – #UAInnovative: an overview of the ecosystem, buzzing startups, digitalization. A series of materials is aimed at English-speaking readers – potential investors in the Ukrainian IT sector, foreign politicians, and all those who have been waiting for a chance to learn more about business and technology in Ukraine – read UAmachinery & UAcreativeindustries project The article is about the Ukrainian wireless security system Ajax Systems that provides the high-level project for the municipality of Bergen, Norway, of protecting the wooden architecture of the city, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site – read   The article is about the Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival that developed online cinema DOCUSPACE to answer to the pandemic challenges. Online cinema that brings together a creative community of documentary filmmakers, human rights advocates, researchers, and everyone who appreciates documentary film – read The article is about the Ukrainian Live Classic is the first app for Ukrainian classical music created for music lovers from all over the world to help discover an enormous layer of beautiful musical pieces, styles, and composers – read Reports:  The number of IT specialists in Ukraine by DOU – read The 200 largest Ukrainian companies by tax payments in 2020 by Rating magazine – read