The annual Global Startup Ecosystem Report ranked Ukraine 34th in the list of 100 startup-friendly countries in 2021. Despite years of economic difficulties, the country still manages “to create technology that is both scalable and global,” reads the report.
One of the reasons why Ukraine is so attractive to startups and investors is the 200,000+ talented developers. Many global businesses like Viber, Amazon and Samsung hire Ukrainian tech specialists to work for them remotely or even set up their own operation centers in Ukraine. The affordable cost of living in Ukraine is also a big plus.
A trend among Ukrainians is to choose to build their own startup and work on attracting money and customers globally. You have likely used Grammarly, the very popular recently mobile app Reface that swap faces in videos or GitLab -all those have Ukrainian founders. If the number of successful Ukrainian startups like these continues to grow at the current rate, Ukraine has a clear path of becoming e a leading country for tech businesses, the report says.
Last year tech companies with Ukrainian roots attracted $571 million from investors. Most of the money came from abroad, highlighting a local issue – Ukraine has less than 40 investment funds.
Another problem for Ukrainian startups, very similar for many countries in the region, is the so-called “brain drain”. Talented specialists leave the country in search of a better place to grow their business and develop their skills. Venture funds like Untitled Ventures are working to provide solutions.
One reason Untitled is looking at the Baltic States and countries like Poland is the rise in startups and entrepreneurs who have moved there in recent years from further east, with Belarusian entrepreneurs coming to the Baltic States and Ukrainian companies moving to Poland or the Czech Republic. That frontline of the EU is very attractive for all of these candidates to come in.”
Oskar Stachowiak, one of Untitled Ventures’ managing partners
Here is a short list of some companies that you have likely heard of or even used their products.
| company | domain | founded | funding | service |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grammarly | grammarly.com | 2009 | €182 million | Improve grammar and spelling |
| Aitheon | aitheon.com | 2017 | NA | Robotics, IoT & human symbiosis |
| GitLab | gitlab.com | 2014 | €394 million | DevOps collaboration platform |
| RefaceAI | reface.ai | 2011 | NA | Face-swapping AI |
| Preply | preply.com | 2013 | €14.4 million | Online learning |
And now let’s take a deeper dive and see if we can get some better idea of the choices Ukrainian startups make when it comes to their brand online. For the purpose we used a startups list created by lift99.
Here is the visual breakdown of domain name extension choices and the full list below. Interesting to note that even though it’s hard to spot as a trend since there are 2 or less of each on the list, new extensions seems to be popular with Ukrainian startups – .solutions, .systems, .bio, .biz, .studio, .world and others similar, amounting to 53 of the 362 brands listed.
| domain extension | number of startups |
|---|---|
| .com | 187 |
| other (less than 2 represented) | 53 |
| .io | 43 |
| .ua | 22 |
| .net | 13 |
| .com.ua | 11 |
| .ai | 9 |
| .me | 8 |
| .co | 7 |
| .org | 5 |
| .eu | 2 |
Dashes are sometimes used to separate words or when the exact brand match domain is not available to secure. In the list of Ukrainian startups there are 15 out of the 362 that included a dash in their domain.
While we make every effort to ensure the data on our site is accurate, complete, and up-to-date, we cannot guarantee its reliability. Our data is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or other advice. We strongly recommend that you independently verify any information before relying on it.
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