Ukrainian startup gems
From WhatsApp to Grammarly, here's everything you need to know about Ukrainian-based startups.
Hello and Welcome to
Rise & Shine☀ - Sunday Special,
Every Sunday, an email will arrive in your inbox detailing a specific topic to help you understand it better.
Let’s get started
Before the Russian invasion, Ukraine was home to one of the world’s best startup ecosystems, with more and 4,000 local tech companies. The country had been producing engineering and IT graduates at an astonishing rate – 130,000 and 16,000 a year, respectively, or about twice as many as countries such as Britain and Poland.
A number of global companies have set up subsidiaries in the country, including Samsung, Microsoft, Snap, Boeing, Siemens and Ericsson, but Ukrainians themselves have produced several well-known tech startups.
Here are a few:
WhatsApp: Whatsapp was cofounded in 2009 by Jan Koum, a Ukrainian emigrant to the US. Koum was born in 1976 in Fastiv, the city where Russia began its invasion in February. Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19.3 billion in 2014.
Grammarly: The ubiquitous grammar correction platform was founded by three Ukrainians – Max Lytvyn, Alex Shevchenko and Dmytro Lider. Headquartered in both Ukraine and the US, the company is currently valued at $13 billion.
Gitlab: The popular devops collaboration platform was founded by Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Sid Sijbrandij in 2014 and is based out of Ukraine. One of the world’s most successful startups, it has more than 1,200 employees in 65 countries.
Traces.AI: The company was founded by two Ukrainian techies, Veronica Yurchuk and Kostyantyn Shysh, in 2014. Traces.AI uses artificial intelligence technology to analyse over 2,000 physical traits of a person using security cameras.
Petcube: Established in Kyiv by Alex Neskin, Yaroslav Azhnyuk and Andrey Klen, the company offers wifi home cameras for pet owners to watch, play and talk to their pets any time through a mobile app. In 2012, after neighbours complained about Neskin’s dog Rocky barking while he was away at work, he built a camera with a laser pointer that let him interact with his pet via the Internet. The following year, Petcube was born.
Jooble: Founded in Ukraine hy Roman Prokofiev and Eugene Sobakarov, Jooble says its mission is to help people find their dream job. It has more than 90 million monthly users in 71 countries, and is the second most visited employment service in the world and among 500 top visited websites globally, according to SimilarWeb.
IT services powerhouse
Before 2022, Ukraine was also on its way to becoming a global IT services powerhouse, ranking 11th among the world’s top offshore software development countries.
In 2015 the country had just 74,000 software developers. This jumped to 166,000 by 2017 and hit 250,000 in 2021.
IT outsourcing in Ukraine was the 2nd largest export services industry, with nearly $5.7 billion revenue generated in 2020. This was expected to hit $8.4 billion by 2025 but that was before Russia invaded its neighbour.
Rise & Shine is a daily newsletter that comes in your inbox every morning with the latest updates from the startup ecosystem and a growth strategy to start your day the smart way!
Thanks for reading😊
Hit 💜, if you enjoyed the article. You can forward this mail or share it on social media.