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Ukrainian Startup Awards 2019 recognized the most impactful activists and fastest-growing Ukrainian startups in 9 categories. Whom did the community nominate, who won, and what does it mean for Ukrainian startup ecosystem for 2020? Read all about what happened at the awards ceremony at LIFT99 Kyiv Hub on January 24th, 2020!
Ragnar Sass is a leadership figure on a truly international scale — his ever-growing team at LIFT99 is dedicated to building up startup ecosystems and helping founders from non-traditional startup markets succeed. Ragnar Sass launched his first startup back in 2007 when the phrase “startup ecosystem” wasn’t yet known. In the past 13 years, he has co-founded several startups and impactful organizations, including Pipedrive and Garage48.
15 startups on the Wall of Fame are marking the beginning of a new chapter for the Ukrainian startup ecosystem. Among the locomotives is a widely-known unicorn Grammarly, which raised $90M in 2019. Readdle with their 100M product downloads. And People.ai, which raised $60M with a valuation at about $500M. Who else is on the Wall and is there landscape for the next unicorn?
Ukrainian startups are the heroes of this story. They are the ones creating massive opportunities for themselves, and if they succeed, for the whole country in general. That’s why we’ve created a list of 400+ Ukrainian startups - to gather into one place the core of the Ukrainian startup ecosystem, the most important ingredient, the startups themselves.
Yuriy believes that if you don't have any high level professional experience, you can’t build a great company – unless you are a true prodigy. The idea for AXDRAFT is based on some real struggles he was facing as one of the top lawyers in Ukraine, the same unnecessary hassle that all lawyers experience daily. His idea took off and today he’s a YC graduate, sharing his story and practical tips with others founders, in person, via our Salto network, and in Ukraine in general.
The morning after the LIFT99 Kyiv Hub TAKEOFF – the grand opening party of our Kyiv hub – a message popped up on our team’s Slack channel: “Guys, did anyone go on the roof last night?”. After long silence another message popped up: “Well, there might have been around 20 people on the roof... including some famous journalist, some hot shot investors, and startup founders. Oopsy daisy!”
Yes, Houston, we had a party!
Sofiia Shvets is the founder and CEO of Let’s Enhance. Coming from Google, she has seen close up how to guide complicated processes and has experienced the impartance of good culture. As a person, her passion is people. As a founder, she has taken on the challenge of applying machine learning to creating great visual content.
Kirill Bigai, the founder and CEO of Preply – one of the most outstanding startups in Ukraine - is on a mission to bring the efficiency of learning to a new level. Preply’s team has been growing fast in the last years and they just opened a new office in Barcelona, with plans to grow the team there to a 100 people over the next year and a half.
One of the exciting things that new year brought is the fact that we can finally say “We’re opening the Kyiv Hub this year! ” The construction works are planned to be finished in March and the official opening date will be announced in the next few weeks. To feed your curiosity, here’s some information you’ve been asking for.
Anton Mishchenko, the founder of YouTeam, and his team bootstrapped YouTeam to over €1M in annual gross revenue without any external investment. This year they were the 4th Ukrainian startup ever to be accepted into Y Combinator. It’s a big year for the team and for Anton – he also just recently moved back to his hometown Kyiv to set up an office there after living in London for almost 15 years.
![Ukraine's Top 15 Startups Launching the Wall of Fame [2019]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59e0ec65b1ffb652c49849db/1572097928331-HDCOLCYKN4LPPYHS91TV/OG_20191024_286511_Small.jpg)
