Ukrainian tech sector in wartime (June Edition)

On 24 February, Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. After 8+ years of occupation of parts of Luhansk and Donetsk regions and attempted annexation of Crimea (aggression that had already killed thousands of Ukrainians), Putin’s regime crossed an unthinkable line, moving the Russian army into brutal large-scale warfare, an invasion the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Europe since World War Two.

Ukraine’s tech sector has had to adapt to the realities of war but continues to operate at almost full capacity despite the extraordinary conditions, demonstrating colossal resilence. Read TechUkraine’s digest of 1.06-30.06.2022 and dig deeper into:

• Analytics: Ukrainian tech ecosystem during war
• Ministry of Digital Transformation: wartime projects & initiatives
• Wartime scaling up: new offices in Ukraine and globally
• Venture capital and investments in wartime
• Tech Ecosystem news during aggression
• Featured Articles via global media
• Podcasts

Ukrainian IT export by National Bank of Ukraine: the export-oriented IT industry provided $ 3 billion 179 million worth of foreign currency incomes to the Ukrainian economy for the first five months of 2022. At the same time, during the period from March to May, when the War has already been ongoing, the volume of exports of computer services increased by 6% compared to the same period of the last year and amounted to $ 1,7 bln — read

Relocation of Ukrainian IT companies by DOU and Ukraine IT Association: all Ukrainian IT companies with teams over 1200 specialists plan to expand operation globally. 64% of companies with 200-1200 professionals on board are ready to scale worldwide. 75% of small companies (>200) don’t look at international expansion — read

TOP 25 gamedev companies in Ukraine by GameDev DOU: Playrix, Ubisoft, Plarium, Goom 8 Group, Gameloft are the leaders of the chart. Over 10 000 tech specialists work in 25 companies of the list — read

Defending Ukraine: Early Lessons from the Cyber War by Microsoft: the report offers five conclusions that come from the war’s first four months — read

Djiinni: How the war impacted the tech job market in Ukraine (Market update, Julу 27th). Candidates online: Candidates: 52,302 (+1,099)б 14,708 (-18) — read

“The IT Army of Ukraine: Structure, Tasking, and Ecosystem” by ETH Zürich CSS: the IT Army subsequently evolved into a hybrid construct that is neither civilian nor military, neither public nor private, neither local nor international, and neither lawful nor unlawful — read

VC Funding In CEE Report — 1Q 2022 by Vestbee: In Ukraine, entrepreneurs were able to secure 13 funding rounds despite the dangerous conditions resulting from the ongoing conflict, which is a positive indication of their capability to maintain their businesses, Among Top 50 CEE startup funding rounds closed in 1Q 2022 are 2 Ukrainians: Workee and Finmap — read

Global Startup ecosystem ranking 2022 by StartupGenome: the world’s most comprehensive research on startups, with data from over 3 million companies across 280 ecosystems — read

Sustainability Report 2021 by SoftServe: In 2021, the number of women managers increased by 3% compared to the previous year and amounted to 52%. The number of female associates hadn’t changed and was 35% in 2021, which is still higher than average for the industry — read

“The country at war: The voice of Ukrainian Start-ups”: TechUkraine, in partnership with the Ukrainian Startup Fund, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Emerging Europe, Tech Emerging Europe Advocates, Global Tech Ambassadors, and TA Ventures, is launching an online survey of the start-up ecosystem which aims to promote Ukrainian startups through international media, venture funds and other global stakeholder.- read

Ministry of Digital Transformation — wartime projects & initiatives

• IT Army of Ukraine: Over 250,000 people have joined a group called IT Army on the social media platform Telegram.
• World’s first Army of Drones: jointly with the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and UNITED24
• Digital diplomacy front: communication with Big Tech companies (Elon Mask & Starlink, Palantir, etc)
• Diia app in wartime: not just e-documents and identification of citizens at checkpoints; now it is also the opportunity to donate the army; e-vorog reports on the movement of the enemy’s military troops and hardware; application for compensation for property damage caused by Russia’s all-out war; 24/7 access to TV and radio; e-bayraktar game — the possibility of imagining yourself as a Bayraktar operator.
• International Legion of Internet Army: a government-led unit for spreading facts about the ongoing conflict against the Kremlin’s propaganda
• MetaHistory Museum of War: An NFT-museum of the war of putin’s russia against Ukraine; already raised over $839,184 — read
• TruthFund.com a fund to fight disinformation about the war in Ukraine — read
• Send putin to Jupiter — over 2 million donations

Wartime scaling up: new offices in Ukraine and globally

Starlink Ukraine received an operator license and the representative office of SpaceX is about to start working in Ukraine — read

Palantir Technologies, a world leader in data analysis software development, is ready to become Ukraine’s partner in defense, security, and digital technologies — read

A global leader in high-performance insulation and energy-efficient building solutions Kingspan Global is to invest €200m in a new Building Technology Campus in Ukraine — read

Ukrainian decacorn Grammarly has opened the fifth Grammarly hub in Berlin, focused on Engineering, Product, and Design — read

Swedish-Ukrainian IT company Sigma Software Group opens new offices in the USA, Portugal, Poland and Czech Republic — read

Ajax Systems opened in Australia — read

Ukrainian IT company N-iX opens office in Krakow, Poland — read

Creatio is increasing its presence in Australia and New Zealand: the company has announced the appointment of Sean Flynn as a Sales Director for Australia and New Zealand — read

Ukrainian outsourcing company Pingle Game Studio opened an affiliate in London and in Ottawa — read

Uber has built a “private-label” version of its delivery platform to help the United Nations deliver food and water supplies to war-torn areas of Ukraine — read

IT Ukraine Association opens Western Ukrainian representative office in Ivano-Frankivsk — read

Venture capital and investments in wartime

New Ukrainian unicorn: Founded by Ukrainian Vadim Yasinovsky and based in the USA workflow automation company airSlate (ex-PDFiller) has raised $51.5 million in a funding round that values the startup at over $1 billion — read

Founded by Ukrainian search engine toolkit company Ahrefs raised $60 million for its own search engine on the sly, called Yep. The company re-invested its own revenues from its paid subscriptions — read

EU to allocate €20M to support Ukrainian startups. According to the program, Ukrainian startups and companies will receive financial support in the amount of up to 60,000 euros; it will facilitate the integration of Ukrainian tech teams into the European innovation ecosystem, which will allow them to grow on the European and global markets — read

The Prime Minister of GB Boris Johnson has announced a series of measures to support Ukraine’s Science & Technology and research sectors: £3 million was initially allocated to the programme and a further £9.8 million announced today will allow it to expand significantly to meet demand — read

The Ukrainian fund NetSolid Investments has invested €200,000 in the SaaS platform PromoRepublic during its €2 million Pre-A round of financing. The company plans to raise the Series A round by the end of the year — read

Max Game Value raised €100K investment from Spanish Demium Capital — read

SID Venture Partners has announced investments in two new startups with Ukrainian founders: the pharmaceutical service Liki24.com and the data platform datuum.ai — read

WePlay Esports has invested in OTK (One True King) media company and influencer network and became OTK’s strategic partner. The details of the deal are disclosed — read

Lviv-based Stepico Games acquired top game art production studio Inkration — read

Founders of Nova Poshta and Fedoriv agency launched new VC Vesna Capital, an investment fund created by seasoned, trustworthy Ukrainian entrepreneurs and innovators with over 20 years of experience — read

ICLUB Global launches an online platform for investing in startups from $10 000 — read

Tech Ecosystem news during aggression

Ukraine ranked 24th in the National Cyber Security Index (NCSI) among over 120 countries — read

According to the Coursera Global Skills Report 2022, Ukraine is ranked #8 in the Technology competencies section with cutting-edge leaders. But the country is lagging in Business section — read

Lviv IT Cluster together with the Lviv City Council and the First Medical Association of Lviv launched an initiative to establish a Mental Health Center — read

Ivano-Frankivsk to become a city of innovation: a large-scale three-year project “New Economy of Ivano-Frankivsk (NEF) — supporting emerging innovative economic activity clusters in Ivano-Frankivsk” (NEF) was launched in Ivano-Frankivsk. The project is funded by the European Union and it will last until March 2025 — read

Ukrainian Startup Fund launched dual-use support program — a non-refundable financial aid for dual-use projects — read

Ukrainian and international partners launched a new educational project “IT Generation” to increase the share of our country’s IT GDP to 10% — read

Meta and Genesis Up to Launch a Free StartUp Academy and Propel the EU Tech Industry — read

For the first time Ukrainian Tech delegation was presented at Canadian Collision Conference — read

Tech Bridge Between Japan & Ukraine: Stand with Ukraine Japan, Le Wagon Tokyo, Virtusize and Nextblue launched the initiative with the purpose of building opportunities for business collaboration and mutual benefit in short- and long-term for Japan’s and Ukraines tech sectors — read

Ukrainian Hub announced launching the initiative Tech Aid Portal in Portugal in partnership with Ukrainian Startup Fund, powered by Ukrainian American Coordinating Council — read

Sigma Software Group, IdeaSoft and UA TECH CLUB founded an informal community UA Tech Network to support SMB in Ukraine — read

International venture funds and tech companies are joining forces and creating the “Ukrainian Tech Circle” to help the Ukrainian IT sector. Ukrainian startups will receive support in financing, finding new customers, and access to a global network of contacts — read

Ukrainian esports team NAVI aka Natus Vincere won the BLAST Premier CS:GO tournament in the Altice Arena in Lisbon — read

Ukrainian Diia City won the nomination of Modern and Future-Proof Policymaking within the Future of Emerging Europe Summit & Awards by Emerging Europe in Brussels — read

Diia app is among shortlist candidates of Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity — 2 nominations in category “creative business transformation” — read

Ukrainian 3DLOOK, the global leader in AI-first mobile body measuring and virtual try-on solutions, has been recognized as a Representative Provider of virtual fit and try-on technology by Gartner — read

Ukrainian app Waterllama among the Apple Design Awards finalists — read

Ukrposhta became the first postal service in the world to open its own stores on Amazon and eBay — read

Ukrainian MacPaw presented Free ClearVPN available via e-governance app Diia — read

Ukrainian scientists have developed “Hydrobandage” to heal burns from phosphorus shells as russia uses banned phosphorus shells, the wounds of which are very deep and do not heal — read

Ex-employee of Ukroboronprom Maxym Sheremet launched the laboratory of military drones for the Ukrainian security and defense forces — watch

British billionaire Richard Branson visits Hostomel in Kyiv Oblast and expressed interest in rebuilding the premises — read

WhatsApp’s Founder Jan Koum Is The Biggest Philanthropists During The War — read

CEO & founder of BetterMe Victoria Repa presented brave Ukrainian tech entrepreneurs to Tim Cook and Apple team — read

Y Combinator: The Founders Scaling Their Startup In A War Zone — watch

Why Ukraine Is Innovator State And Digitalization Pioneer — read

Featured stories in Ukrainian tech media

LigaTech: How robots become a part of Arm forces in Ukraine — read

Forbes Ukraine: Ukrainian tech innovation — military robot Gnom — read

AIN: Diia City now has 253 residents. Is it a new age for the Ukrainian IT sector? — read

Mind.ua: Ukraine As The Future Mecca For Drone & Robot Manufacturers — read

Dev.ua: Ukrainian tech entrepreneur Ulyana Shtybel was awarded at Inspiring Fifty Europe 2022 in London — read

TechUkraine: interview, reportages, longreads

• Yegor Aushev, CyberUnit.Tech & Cyber School: “Our mission is to elevate the perception of Ukraine as a country of innovation” — read
• Ukraine In The Spotlight At TNW 2022 — read
• Ukraine Seeds Tech Bravery At Viva Tech 2022 — read
• MET AMS 2022: Europe’s First Metaverse Festival — read
• “HACK BACK” at SHOWTIME: Documentary About Cyberwar In Ukraine By VICE News — read
• ETH Zürich CSS report: “The IT Army of Ukraine: Structure, Tasking, and Ecosystem” — read
• ClearVPN Won The Global InfoSec Award For 2022 — read
• How Glorium Technologies Stands with Ukraine — read

Estonia, Poland, Germany, Romania: guides to registering a business abroad. Infographics — read

Featured Articles via global media

• TechCrunch: 6 reasons to invest in startups from Ukraine — read
• WIRED: Volodymyr Zelensky on War, Technology, and the Future of Ukraine — read
• Euronews: 100 days of war in Ukraine: Stories of the rise and resilience of the nation’s tech sector — read
• Bloomberg: Ukraine Urges Musk’s Starlink to Keep Helping Alongside Weapons — read
• Emerging Europe: Building Europe’s resilience through digital transformation — read
• Foreign Policy: Ukraine’s Bomb Squads Have a New Top Dog — read
• Science|Business: Ukraine war prompts EU to ‘speed up’ work on critical technologies — read
• DutchNews: Zelenskyy announces ‘digital lend-lease’ for Ukraine during The Next Web — read
• L’illustré: Technological innovation at the service of the Ukrainian resistance — read
• TNW: President Zelensky’s hologram addresses 4 tech conferences across Europe — here’s what he had to say — read
• The Washington Post: How Russia’s vaunted cyber capabilities were frustrated in Ukraine — read
• Atlantic Council: Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion is the world’s first full-scale cyberwar — read
• FinTech Magazine: How the Ukrainian financial ecosystem has remained resilient — read
• NHK WORLD JAPAN: Digital Eye Documentary “Ukraine: The New Satellite War” — watch
• Bloomberg: The Electric Bikes Facing Off Against Putin’s War Machine — read
• Forbes: LVMH Innovation Award 2022 Finalist DressX Wants To Be The Google Cloud Of Digital Fashion — read
• wyborcza.biz: Ukrainian Silicon Valley in Warsaw — read

Podcasts & videocasts

• Blockquote by Andrii Degeler: Oleksandr Kosovan — MacPaw, Alex Serdiuk — Respeecher, Dmitry Dubrovskyi — Uklon, Yaroslav Azhnyuk — Petcube, SpendWithUkraine
• Kunsht podcast — military tech season, also on YouTube
• Podcast by Ukrainian Weekly & Mike Buryk with Valerii Iakovenko on using drones for military defense — listen
• Osnovy Publishing Show Podcast: Anna Bulakh — Respeecher’s hybrid warfare and security expert — listen
• DOU Podcast: how Ukrainian IT operating in wartime — listen

Via TechUkraine, NYT, Emerging Europe, WIRED, TechCrunch, Forbes, Bloomberg, Sifted, VICE, Reuters, Euronews, wyborcza.biz, DutchNews, Atlantic Council, L’illustré, TNW, TIME, WSJ, The Washington Post, FinTech Magazine, Foreign Policy, DOU, dev.ua, SPEKA, AIN, UBN, Vector, Speka, The Kyiv Independent, Mind, etc

Read the first wartime edition (February-March) here

Read the second wartime edition (April) here

Read the third wartime third edition (MAy) here

Support Kyiv-based TechUkraine team here.