Venture investments in Ukrainian startups, IT companies 1.5 times up in 2019 – UVCA

The volume of venture capital raised by Ukrainian IT companies and startups in 2019 amounted to $510 million, which is 1.5 times higher than the maximum of 2018, according to a review by the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA).

"The number of deals in 2019 was almost the same as in 2018: 111 deals compared to 115 in 2018. In 2019, the volume of M&A transactions (mergers and acquisitions) increased by 18 times. Some 15 M&A deals have totaled $460 million while in 2018 there were seven transactions worth $25.2 million. The increase of Angel Investments by 7 times in 2019 has been shown in the amount of $6.1 million compared to $900,000 in 2018," the agency said on its website.

"For the first time, we analyzed gender diversity among startup founders that raised funding. We found out that 26% of companies have at least one woman among founders. Thus, according to Crunchbase, the global average is 19%. I hope that the tendency of gender equality in Ukraine will strengthen further and that women will also prove to be effective crisis managers," Olga Afanasyeva, the CEO at the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, said.

"2019 was marked by 29 exits of Ukrainian investors, with the average transaction check growing by 78% to $5.7 million. Software companies have been leading in the number of deals and their volume, moving the "online service" sector to the second place. The volume of top ten transactions has almost doubled to $456 million. By geography, 90% of the attracted investments were inflow from the United States," the association said.

Among the top ten transactions, in particular, were investments in growth (growth) at GitLab ($268 million), Grammarly ($90 million), People.ai ($60 million), JiJi.ng ($21 million); Round A at Allset ($5 million), Unstoppable Domains ($4 million), MyCredit ($3 million), AllRight ($1.5 million), and seed investments at PromoRepublic ($2.3 million), RetargetApp ($1.5 million).

Source: www.en.interfax.com.ua