Ukraine’s innovators are spotting and pursuing economic opportunities despite the continuing war. They’ll soon get early support from Ukraine Phoenix Tech Fund, a new venture fund focused exclusively on Ukrainian startups.
UPTF will invest in seed to Series A tech startups with a planned €50 million ($53 million) fund. It has early commitments of €32.5 million from the European Investment Bank’s EU for Ukraine Fund and several French institutions: investment bank Bpifrance, development finance institution Proparco, and Horizon, the family office of Henri Seydoux, the founder of French drone company Parrot.
UPTF’s Charles Whitehead called the fund “an engine to build a durable economy, an emerging capital market, and a bridge from Ukraine’s extraordinary engineering talent to global customers, partners, and markets.”
Whitehead, who is based in New York, runs UPTF with Dominique Piotet, a serial entrepreneur based in Barcelona whose resume includes leading Kyiv’s innovation hub, UNIT.City, from 2019 to 2022.
UPTF will be based in the hub and will leverage Ukrainian venture builder eō Business Incubators for deal pipeline.
Funding flows
Speaking at the fund’s launch, Ukraine’s digital transformation minister Mykhailo Fedorov noted that “even during the full-scale war, Ukrainian startups are creating innovative products and competing globally.” The fund’s launch signals Ukraine’s “potential in the global market,” he added.
In July, Kyiv-based Flyer One Ventures closed its fifth fund at €50 million last July with backing from the International Finance Corp. and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The fund invests in early-stage Ukrainian startups, but also more broadly in Eastern Europe.
Last year, Horizon Capital, a woman-led Ukrainian private equity firm, raised more than $360 million for growth- and later-stage software, agriculture and manufacturing companies exporting goods outside of the country.
