👨🏿‍🔬 🤽🏼 ✌️ What to expect at the startup arena of Ukraine in 2020? 🦓 👩 ✋

This material was prepared specifically for Startup Jedi - online media about startups and investments in early March this year. Something has already happened from what I wrote in the future tense.

In the previous material at Startup Jedi, we successfully summed up the results of 2019 , where we already wrote about the “Ukrainian unicorns”, which we should definitely follow in the new year, and now we’ll try to wipe our “crystal ball” and look into the future to understand that But we are expected in 2020.

Projects that deserve attention

Probably, the hottest projects in Ukraine this year will be two startups from experienced serial entrepreneurs, with whom the development of the venture industry in Ukraine began in many ways.

Denis Dovgopoliy with his team is doing the Unicorn Nest project , whose soft launch will be held in March. It may become perhaps the most useful for entrepreneurs, as it combines information about foundations, “angels” and how to get in touch with them.

Alexey Mas, who at one time created the first banner network of Ukraine, decided in turn to compete with Mark Zuckerberg and launches “Craft Networks”- own vision of what a social network should be like. Craft social networks will be something between Telegram and Facebook, the difference will be the presence of more gamification elements.

Investments and Exits

This year we can confidently expect a couple more successful “exits” from Ukrainian projects - it is likely that we will see both purchases and new rounds of financing (the dynamics of the first months of raising money allows us to be optimistic - Ukrainian projects closed deals in the first weeks of the new years about which we wrote in the first material about the results of 2019 ). The general global trend of increasing the “average check” for all rounds of financing will also affect the Ukrainian market, which means that the number of zeros in term sheets will probably be greater.

Events

(from the author: this section looks particularly “relevant” in connection with quarantine)

Traditionally, the largest IT forum in Ukraine, iForum, will make a noise, which will start in a couple of months and thereby open the new season of the IT show in Ukraine. We are waiting for the next record of attendance and opportunities from him, how to look at the large companies that are represented on the Ukrainian market, and at the “newcomers” who are just taking their first steps. I would like to see new formats within the forum, and not just panel discussions and speeches.

What is really missing in Ukraine is the autumn forum in Kiev, as the Lviv IT arena is traditionally held in late September and early October, and October and November still provide an opportunity to take stock in the capital. Previously, the IDCEE conference organized by Victoria Tigipko’s TA Venture venture fund managed this role, and after the cancellation of the conference in 2015, Kiev has been without a large-scale autumn technological event for 5 years.

People

We already wrote in our material about who should be monitored this year - Denis Dovgopoli and Alexei Mas are preparing really cool projects. In addition to them, in the Ukrainian market it is worth following Alexander Soroka , Startup.Network , and his startup battles, which are taking place all over the world. Alexander Kosovan with his “dream” at MacPaw this year will strengthen his own alternative to MacStore - Setapp, and this company is definitely worth watching carefully.

Technologies

2020 is likely to be a breakthrough in the use of VR / AR technologies and Ukraine, with its technology companies, has every chance of occupying a prominent place in this market. The second market, which is likely to be actively developing this year, will be alternative energy, where Ukraine also has every chance to become at least a regional leader. The introduction of the 5G standard by mobile operators will attract additional attention to the IoT sphere, which will push both in the development of the solutions themselves in this field (the Ukrainian Blynk project has been successfully developing IoT solutions since 2014) and in security services (I recall the old joke that few people know that the letter s in IoT means “security”).

And finally, new communication formats - it is unlikely that Elon Musk will have time to make Neurolink this year to establish a direct connection between a person and a computer, but the emergence of new communication formats (like TikTok last year) can be predicted with confidence.

State

The Ukrainian parliament has already indicated its interest in regulating the startup sphere with bill # 2615, which received its portion of criticism. It is hoped that the Ukrainian deputies will find the strength not only not to impose their own vision, which is easy to do thanks to the "mono-majority" in the Supreme Council, but will begin to hear the opinion of relevant associations and entrepreneurs themselves, who in their own skin may feel "improvement" after adoption of laws by the new parliament.

From the positive - this year the Ukrainian Startup Fund , created by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine , will probably continue its activities . He has already given out the first grants in February of this year.choosing the winners of the first pitch of the day: 6 projects received grants of Seed-rounds and 2 - Pre-Seed. We believe that one fund that focuses on the pre-seed and seed stages will not end, and we will see, for example, the Fund of Funds, which Ukraine needs for the further development of the venture industry, because many countries that have the positive experience of creating such a fund boast a greater development of the venture market than Ukraine.

Total

It is fair to admit that not a single person in the world will be able to say about what will happen even in a moment all over the world. Therefore, this article with “predictions” of the development of the Ukrainian technological market in 2020 can be considered as anything, but not as the ultimate truth, which is stamped on the tablets. It will be interesting for us to take stock of this year and see what comes of the “predictions”, but for now we can only work together to make the Ukrainian market more and more attractive not only in terms of outsourcing or developing R&D centers of large world companies, but also creating their own grocery companies that will join the “club of Ukrainian unicorns”.

Posted by alexriabtsev , project founderStartup.In.UA

What to expect at the startup arena of Ukraine in 2020?