In late April the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA) released an overview of the Ukrainian venture market in 2019. Investments in tech startups and IT companies registered or born in Ukraine reached $510 million, up 50% from the previous year.
This number may seem modest by international standards, but it set a record in the history of this young market – with a 50% increase over one year. However, the better part of these deals took place in the USA, involving startups which were born in Ukrainian but moved abroad as soon as they began developing at a significant scale.
Angel investment totalled $6.1 million with an apparent increase from the previous year.
The UVCA identified 111 deals last year, compared to 115 in 2018.
The value of mergers and acquisitions in the sectors increased dramatically – by 18 times – with 15 deals totaling $460 million.
The UVCA identified 29 exits for Ukrainian investors, with the average transaction amount reaching $5.7 million, up 78% from 2018.
The industry association also noted a significant level of gender diversity among tech company founders: “We found out that 26% of companies have at least one woman among founders while the global average, according to Crunchbase, is just 19%,” said UVCA CEO Olga Afanasyeva.
AVentures Capital, a leading Ukrainian investment firm, released its own market report in March with converging numbers. According to this report, the VC/PE funding volume for Ukrainian and Ukrainian-founded tech startups reached $544 million in 2019, up from $323 million in 2018 and $265 million in 2017.
