The Ukrainian capital Kyiv has emerged as one of the best startup ecosystems in Europe and among the leaders in the world. There is an abundance of talent and highly skilled entrepreneurs in the country contributing to the growth of the startup scene in the country. Despite a majority of such skilled talent choosing to work for international companies, there is a strong entrepreneurship in Ukraine.
Ukraine prominent tech companies
With the country being home to several successful companies that have gone international, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that Ukraine holds a prominent place in the tech startup ecosystem in Europe. The growth of these companies is facilitated by the presence of incubators, VC investment, and accelerators with global experience.
Interestingly, even while the business ecosystem across the world was dull due to the COVID-19, the Ukrainian tech ecosystem has been bustling with activities including funding and new solutions. Given that Ukraine and Kyiv are important hubs for opportunity and innovation for tech companies, here we have cherry-picked some prominent tech companies that are born out of Ukraine.
Grammarly
Founder/s: Max Lytvyn, Alex Shevchenko, Dmytro Lider
Founded year: 2009
Funding: €182 million
Grammarly was founded with the intention of helping people communicate more effectively. Initially, it was focused on supporting students to improve their grammar and spelling via a subscription-based product. Later, they saw the potential of how it can help a broad spectrum of use cases from everyday correspondence and professional writing.
With the advancement of technology, Grammarly grew its capabilities with the deployment of its AI-powered writing assistant that extends beyond spelling and grammar. It analyses complex aspects of communication and language. Currently, Grammarly offers a real-time and intuitive interface for people wherever they type with its solutions such as browser extensions, a Microsoft Office add-in, mobile keyboards, a desktop interface, and a web-based editor.
Aitheon
Founder/s: Andrew Archer
Founded year: 2017
Funding: NA
Aitheon is an emerging robotics innovator and a resident of the UNIT.City innovation park. It provides businesses with Artificial Intelligence and robotics solutions so that they can automate their entire business operations and employee management using a single platform and increase efficiencies, quality and financial soundness.
The Ukrainian robotics startup works with the mission to change the back-end business management, which is complicated and time consuming with the integration of Artificial Intelligence, robotics and human symbiosis. With this process, businesses can have a single access point to complete all mundane business tasks.
Traces.AI
Founder/s: Veronica Yurchuk, Kostyantyn Shysh
Founded year: 2014
Funding: NA
Ukraine-based computer vision startup Traces.AI deploys its technology based on Artificial Intelligence to analyse over 2,000 physical traits of a person via security cameras. These include their hairstyle, the accessories they wear, and much more. Now, Traces.AI has developed a tool to track people who have come into contact with those impacted by COVID-19 and be carriers of the novel coronavirus.
The developers of this tech claim that they can curb the community spread of COVID-19 if it is deployed massively right now. What’s more interesting is that Traces.AI can analyse data from thermal imaging cameras that can detect even a heightened temperature in humans.
GitLab
Founder/s: Dmitriy Zaporozhets, Sid Sijbrandij
Founded year: 2014
Funding: €394 million
GitLab, based in Ukraine, is one of the most widely used DevOps collaboration platforms. It has delivered a single application, which changes the way development, security, and ops teams collaborate and build software. GitLab helps teams improve cycle time from weeks to minutes, reduce development costs, and increase developer productivity. It is one of the most successful startups in the world that has over 1,200 employees working remotely from across 65 countries.
Preply
Founder/s: Dmytro Voloshyn, Kirill Bigai, Serge Lukianov
Founded year: 2013
Funding: €14.4 million
Ukrainian online learning platform Preply uses machine learning to match tutors with learners irrespective of wherever they are in the world. The company touts to host 10,000 verified tutors teaching 50 languages to several thousands of students in 190 countries all over the world.
The Kyiv-based edtech startup secured $10 million (nearly €9 million) from Hoxton Ventures, Point Nine Capital, The Family, All Iron Ventures, Diligent Capital, and EduCapital. The company will use this investment to expand tools for both tutors and learners and streamline the Android and iOS app to make it user-friendly. Also, it aims to scale up its business in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, North America, and the UK.
RefaceAI
Founder/s: Dmytro Shvets, Ivan Altsybieiev, Roman Mogylnyi, Oles Petriv, Yaroslav Boiko
Founded year: 2011
RefaceAI uses face-swapping AI to build solutions for the entertainment industry, game development and human interactions. Its technology does not simply copy/paste a fast from one person to another. It seamlessly embeds the desired face on a target photo so that it fits with high levels of accuracy even if swapping is made between faces of different skin colours or genders.
The system used by RefaceAI can swap faces on statues, cartoons, paintings, and video game characters. The technology used by this Ukrainian startup keeps emotions of the main face even after swapping. It works pretty well with pictures and high-quality videos as well.
People.ai
Founder/s: Oleg Rogynskyy
Founded year: 2016
Funding: €89.2 million
Ukrainian startup People.ai develops Artificial Intelligence that helps sales specialists work efficiently with their clients. It accelerates enterprise growth by harnessing the power of AI. This company frees all customer-facing teams such as marketing, sales, and customer success from manual data entry. This is one by capturing all contacts and customer activate data automatically and updating the CRM dynamically.
Last month, People.ai announced that it raised $60 million (nearly €53.5 million) funding to foster expansion of its business. The company will use this investment to rollout its new tool, The Wire, which is a feed of insights that sales personnel can access to find prospective clients and pick tips on how to approach them and sell to them.
Main image picture credits: Preply
