Lifting any possible doubt about the resilience of Ukraine’s high-tech sector in these troubled times, the IDCEE conference was held brilliantly last week at the Olympic stadium of Kiev. Some 2,000 local and foreign startup entrepreneurs, venture investors, representative of small and large high tech and financial companies, industry experts and other IT people gathered in the gigantic venue.
In the startup area, the Ukrainian contingent was the most numerous – perhaps even more than in the event’s previous editions. As many as 19 startups – all Ukrainian – took home prizes that ranged from mentorships to up to $19,000 in cash winnings.
Among these winners was Petcube: this internationally-oriented startup, which has developed a gadget to remotely connect people with their pets, walked away with a $18,500 check from the GTF grant fund.
The jury proclaimed Kwambio, an online platform for creating customized three-dimensional printed products, the event’s best startup and offered it a $19,000 prize. EcoisMe, which has developed a system for managing energy at home, got $12,700. This Ukrainian startup is being backed by Polish incubator Hubraum.
Other winners were Competera, Hashtago, Helprace, Looksery, VOX, Zarabotus, ZZ Photo, and Zen Assets (see more details here). The latter, a web application for investment portfolio management, received six months of mentoring and media support from APEX VNT, a major venture fund operating from Ukraine and the UK.
On its side, Microsoft supported FlyElephant, a cloud marketplace for data aggregation and high-performance computing; Kaznachey, a cloud e-payment platform; and hotel booking serviceGoodHotels.
DonorUA, Volunteer Social Network, City Underground Communications Map and Splace were distinguished at the Social Entrepreneurship Hackathon. This contest was co-organized together with SocialBoost and the participation of media publisher Boris Kaufman.
DonorUA, an online platform that allows people to find blood donors faster, won the Social Entrepreneurship Hackathon.
Western investors vs. “politicians’ bullshit”
Among the foreign investors – who seemed to be less numerous than in previous years – were Kirill Cehoval of Intel Capital, Jaewon Peter Chun of APEX Investment & Company (South Korea), Tomasz Danis of MCI (Poland), Rafael de Haro of Variv Capital (USA), Ilja Laurs of Nextury Ventures (Lituania), Florian Schweitzer of B-to-V (Switzerland) and Cem Sertoglu of Early Bird Venture Capital (Turkey), as well as representatives of the EBRD and the IFC.
Several German funds were also there, including Florian Heinemann of Project A, Andreas Otto of Seven Ventures, Alexandra Rasskazova of e.Ventures and Martin Weber of Holtzbrinck Ventures.
The international angel investor contigent was represented by Bas Godska, Fabrice Grinda and José Marin, among many others.
“Our presence here proves that business and innovation can continue in spite of politicians’ bullshit,” stated Schweitzer. The Swiss investor is interested, first of all, in Ukraine’s highly qualified IT workforce, but he does not rule out investing in local startups in the future.
“I didn’t tell my mother that I went to Ukraine, but I am delighted to discover the local tech scene,” said Erik Anderson, a young American who came to Kiev to get acquainted with local startups. These are potential targets for Startup Wise Guys, the Estonian B2B startup accelerator Anderson works with.
Russian internationalists
Demonstrating a healthy venture internationalism, several Russian investors were there, too. Among the most prominent ones were Pavel Bogdanov and Ukrainian-born Sasha Galitsky of Almaz Capital, Dmitry Chikhachev of Runa Capital, Roman Simonov of the US-Russian firm Russia Partners, and Alexander Turkot of Maxfield Capital.
“Our fund’s policy regarding Ukraine has in no way been affected by the recent political turmoil,” Galitsky told East-West Digital News in a recent exchange. “The first reason is that investing in Ukraine is part of our mandate. The second reason is that, in our industries, project development and investment cycles are counted in years, which keeps them aside from political ups and downs.”
“The technology business should be outside of politics, and we are sad about what is going on and about the negative emotional background created by the recent events in Ukraine,” said Chikhachev in a recent interview.
The event, however, failed to attract speakers from China, even though the organizers initially planned to focus on this country. “Many of our potential speakers from there are tightly integrated into the current political situation (in the world), so we couldn’t bring them to Ukraine,” IDCEE organizer Viktoriya Tigipko explained to The Kyiv Post.
Industry announcements
Several industry announcements were made at the event. -Tigipko, who also heads the TA Venture investment fund, and Yevgeny Bondarenko, COO of media holding StarLightMedia, unveiled a $3.2 million media-for-equity deal. The transaction – the first of its kind in Ukraine – concerns StarLightMedia, which is a property of Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk, and Topmall, a fashion e-commerce site launched last year by TA Venture.
TA Venture’s Viktoriya Tigipko and StarLightMedia’s Yevgeny Bondarenko announced their $3.2 million media-for-equity deal on Oct. 9.
The official launch of Ukraine Digital News was also announced at IDCEE. Aimed at providing the local digital and venture scene with quality international media coverage, this initiative enjoys the support of several venture funds, IT service companies and industry associations.
“This is just one of several recent community initiatives that demonstrate the incredible energy of the Ukrainian high tech scene,” said chief editor Adrien Henni, citing the recent creation of industry associations UAngel, UVCA and UAID, as well as of the non-profit Brainbasket Foundation, as other examples of the paradoxical industry revival in the current political turmoil.
Ukraine Digital News is a sister company of East-West Digital News, which was launched in Russia three years ago with a similar international media coverage goal.
IDCEE is set to become even more international in the future – under the “U-Start CEE” brand – since it is joining the event network of boutique advisory firm U-Start. Founded in 2012 in Italy, U-Start aims to match family offices, business angels and other types of investors with early-stage companies in Southern and Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America.
“Nowadays, startups struggle to raise money from traditional venture investors. That’s why it’s very important to engage family offices,” Tigipko commented.
“We are joining the teams. U-Start will leverage IDCEE’s experience to bring our existing conferences – in Lugano, Milan, Cape Town, Sao Paolo, Santiago de Chile, Mexico City and Istanbul – to an even higher, world-class level,” said U-Start founder Stefano Guidotti (see full interview next week on Ukraine Digital News).
