A new fund, ‘1991 Ventures,’ has been launched in London to support Ukrainian startup entrepreneurs, both within and beyond their war-affected nation, along with other Central and Eastern European (CEE) startup talents.
The name ‘1991’ pays homage to the year of Ukraine’s independence amid the dismantlement of the Soviet Union.
With an initial endowment of £15 million ($18.8 million), the fund has garnered support from Venrex and Samos Investments, prominent UK limited partners associated with Seedcamp and Entrepreneur First.
1991 Ventures claims it will help startups “doing right things right” by pursuing an ESG/SDG orientation.
“1991 stands for ESG standards regardless of the specific startup sector or fraction of the business startup is involved with. We follow SDG priorities combined with the biggest challenges of a modern day navigating the signals from the market, government, and international organizations,” reads the fund’s website.
Leading the fund are two Ukrainian entrepreneurs based in London, Denis and Viktor Gurskyi. In an exchange with TechCrunch, Denis Gurskyi emphasized the abundant untapped talent in Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe, expressing the fund’s goal to cultivate a stream of high-quality deal flow from the region.
Gurskyi said 1991 Ventures will bridge Ukrainian startup founders with London, offering pre-seed or seed funding to facilitate their access to larger funding rounds in the future and explore the UK’s potential as a gateway to global investment.
The Gurskyi brothers are known in Ukraine for their incubator SocialBoost and accelerator 1991, launched in 2012 and 2016, respectively.
The 1991 accelerator focuses on data and deep tech via govtech, civic tech, cybersecurity, fintech, mobility and smart city. It claims to have supported over 200 companies since its inception, helping them raise over “$10 million in VC grants.”
