Techosystem, a civic union that unites all technology market players in Ukraine, has created a Venture Investment Committee. The launch took place on May 21. The union announced the news to AIN.UA.

This committee will be responsible for the implementation of Techosystem’s strategy for promoting investment in Ukrainian startups, developing partnerships with venture capital funds, and establishing interaction between startups and investors.

The Venture Investment Committee starts with the formation of a working group.

We moved from the request of active venture investors. The lack of an active independent platform for the interaction of market players and the implementation of projects for the development of the venture capital market in Ukraine became the basis for launching this working group. The list of initiatives launched by the union includes the list of the most promising startups of Ukraine and the Hall of Fame of the ecosystem, training scaleups together with Danish Tech Startups, the base of investors in Ukrainian startups and the defense-tech vertical, in particular, the development of the matching grants tool and others. In total, the group is currently implementing about 20 different projects,

Oleksandr Yatsenko, chairman of the Techosystem board and one of the initiators of the working group on venture investments, said.

The list of announced projects by the committee:

  • Conducting monthly research on investment deals in Ukrainian startups and other market research;
  • Building connections between Ukrainian and international investors and Ukrainian startups – attracting international venture capital investments to strengthen the international presence of Ukrainian startups;
  • Strengthening links with venture funds, establishing links between the venture ecosystems of Ukraine, the EU and the US;
  • Launch and operation of the Equity Crowdfunding Platform – a platform for expanding access to investment and stimulating economic development;
  • Launch and operate the Matching Grants tool for financing Ukrainian startups – a public-private grant program that leverages the capabilities of private sector partners to support innovative technology startups by matching investments with grant funds.

The committee participants include:

  • Investment funds: BRISE Capital, Flyer One Ventures, Geek Ventures, Horizon Capital, SID Venture Partners, Sigma Software Labs, SMOK Ventures, SMRK, u.ventures, ZAS Ventures;
  • Accelerators and incubators: CfE Accelerator, Mission Possible, Startup Wise Guys, Vacuum Deep Tech Acceleration, YEP Accelerator, Zhytomyr Polytechnic Innovation Hub;
  • Natural persons: Yaroslav Krempovych, Yaroslav Yakovenko;
  • Other companies: Kooperativ, Molfar.

The committee was headed by Andrew Zinchuk, founder and managing partner of ZAS Venture Group, Ukrainian entrepreneur, investor, startup consultant.

I decided to run for the position of head of the Venture Investment Committee in order to unite the efforts of the entire Ukrainian technology ecosystem to achieve ambitious goals. My experience at ZAS Venture Group allowed me to understand the importance of joint work and investment attraction for the development of Ukrainian startups. Our big goal at ZAS Ventures is to create 30 new unicorns in Ukraine by 2034. Moreover, my vision is that about a third of these unicorns will be in the field of defense technologies, which are now being born to protect Ukraine. Achieving this goal is impossible by the efforts of a single actor, so I am striving to unite the efforts of the entire ecosystem to achieve this goal, which will directly bring us closer to victory and strengthen the country’s economy,

Zinchuk commented.

The direction of venture investments is one of the six key areas in the activities of Techosystem, the union informed AIN.UA. The other five areas of activity of the ecosystem are:

  1. Education and standardization;
  2. International relations and events;
  3. Analytics and research;
  4. Interaction with the state;
  5. Service companies.

At the same time, Techosystem reported that with the expansion of its activities, the number of these areas will eventually increase to 12.