Record-breaking year for Ukrainian IT as investment passes $510 million

Amid the coronavirus quarantine, Ukrainian IT businesses and startups continue delivering innovative solutions, even if they remain uncertain about their future.

Some tech companies appear to be losing clients and cutting salaries to avoid layoffs throughout the COVID-19 crisis, one report from April 21 suggests.

But the IT sphere is also considered to be an area that can bounce back quickly. Plenty of indicators point to strong performance in Ukraine’s information technology sector through 2019, and many observers now expect further investment growth as soon as the global economic situation stabilizes, Volodymyr Yumashev from Deloitte Ukraine said.

In 2019 Ukraine’s IT and startups have attracted a record $510 million volume of investment money, 1.5 times higher than the last record year of 2018, according to a review by the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA).

Ukraine-founded software developer platform GitLab raised $268 million for growth. Another Ukrainian “unicorn” Grammarly attracted $90 million; $60 million was invested into the growth of tech startup People.ai founded by Ukrainian Oleg Rogynskyy and $21 million into the online marketplace JiJi.ng.

The top Series A deals included Ukrainian startups Allset ($5 million), Unstoppable Domains ($4 million), MyCredit ($3 million), and AllRight ($1.5 million).

(Full story at source: Kyiv Post)