Research: Top 10 deals in the Ukrainian venture capital market for 2018

Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA) presented the results of a study of the venture investment market in 2018. According to analysts, the market has grown in almost all indicators compared with 2017, breaking records in the amounts of investments and million-plus startups (only the ICO segment has decreased). Also, 10 largest transactions of the past year were named in the study.

AIN.UA chose the most interesting talking points and graphics.

Top 10 deals of 2018

The analysts compiled the ranking of startups by the number of attracted funds for 2018. Among them are both Ukrainian startups and international ones, but with Ukrainian roots.

GitLab, a popular service for developers, which has attracted more than $100 million is in the first place. On the second place is BitFury, blockchain technology company of Vavilov and Podnebesnyi, which has received $80 million for further development. And People.ai is in the third place, with a $30 million deal in the fall of 2018.

Other companies that are in the top 10 are YayPay, DreamTeam, Restream, Busfor (in 2018, it raised $8.6 million from the Swedish foundation Vostok New), Preply, and Spinbackup.

Venture market: a new record – $337 million of investment over the year

According to UVCA estimates, for 2018, 115 deals (including non-public ones) were concluded in the venture capital market. Compared to 2017, total investments increased 13 times and reached $336.9 million.

The overall average ticket for a company was $3.2 million (excluding deals with undisclosed amounts). In addition, investments in startups at the seed stage rose to an average ticket of $918,000, which is almost 90% more than a year earlier.

Online services prevail by the number of deals, but in terms of the amounts of funds raised, software companies are ahead.

As for the exit, in 2018 there were 8 of them, which is two times less than in 2017.

In the angel investments segment, there were 7 deals for a total of $0.9 million.

Also, there were seven M&A deals (mergers, acquisitions), but the total amount is ten times higher – $25.2 million.

ICO Market

Over the past year, 4 successful fundraising campaigns have been registered in the Ukrainian ICO market: Rentberry, Remme, DreamTeam, and Creditor Data Platform.

In total, these companies attracted $58.3 million through the placement of tokens. This is three times less than in 2017 (more than $160 million were attracted by Ukrainian startups through ICO, in total, 19 successful placements were recorded).

The whole study can be viewed below: