Volume of venture capital placed in Ukrainian tech startups fell by two times this year, all the way to $40 million, according to the Dealbook of Ukraine, a source of information on country's venture scene released by AVentures Capital and Ukraine Digital News.
Ukraine’s venture market was the fastest developing one in Europe in 2012-2013 with investments growing from $44 million in 2012 to $80 million in 2013, but ongoing economic crisis hit the tech industry along the other sectors of economy.
Overall, there were more than 250 deals on the local information technology market in 2010-2014 as of October, they involved over 1,000 startups that mostly develop software.
Tech market actors say there was no venture capital available until 2006, while afterwards it were foreign funds that dominated the market. However, in 2013 local investors became much more active and have contributed approximately a half to what was provided as venture money since then.
Google’s acquisition of Viewdle, a developer of face recognition technology, leads the list of most prominent Ukrainian tech acquisitions in 2010-2014. Two other most widely discussed deals include Rakuten’s purchase of Slice, an Odesa-based startup that developed an app that allows to track shop orders and manage purchase history; Apax’s acquisition of Global Logic, a maker of software for digital media, electronics and finance, is also a notable one.
What AVentures managing partner Evgen Sysoev called an “epochal research” has 120 pages and is accessible at Slideshare and could be downloaded here.
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
