Ukraine’s Flyer One Ventures 2022 report: $10M invested, 14 startups added to portfolio

Flyer One Ventures, an international VC firm launched its third fund and invested around $10 million in 14 new companies and in existing portfolio startups in 2022. The total valuation of only Ukraine-founded startups in its portfolio reached $400 million. 

Flyer One Ventures Principal Alexei Yermolenko comments on the fund’s investing plans for 2023 and main deals in 2022. AIN.Capital shares the key points.

• Flyer One Ventures has offices in Kyiv, London, Warsaw, and mainly invests in such industries as online education, digital health, mobile apps, adtech, and AI/ML. Over the last four years, Flyer One Ventures has invested $35 million in 55 companies, had one exit, and saw one portfolio company become a unicorn.
• In 2022, the fund invested in 14 new startups, but not all the deals were public. Among the disclosed deals there were:
  • The UK-based Fintech Farm, founded in 2020 by Alexander Vityaz, Mykola Bezkrovnyy, and Dmytro Dubilet (co-founder of Ukraine’s Monobank) is a startup that creates digital banks in emerging markets. 
  • KarmaCheck, launched in 2019 in the US, the company develops software that helps employers check the background of potential hires and optimize onboarding.
  • Greenscreens.ai, the US-based company that builds a pricing platform for the logistics industry. The startup helps small and medium freight brokers identify and set the optimal prices for cargo delivery.
  • Sheep Inc., the UK’s sustainable fashion startup that produces eco-friendly wool clothing. The startup has also developed software to help fashion brands track carbon emissions.
  • Founded in 2022 a Cyprus-based startup Peech that builds a text-to-speech app. It converts any text (from files, documents, web pages, and even pictures) into audio. The service is available in 50 languages.
  • Parent Village, a US- and New Zealand-based marketplace that helps parents find reliable babysitters. The startup’s team has made a working product with hundreds of customers in just four months, with a budget of $250,000.

News from portfolio startups:

• 27 of F1V portfolio startups raised a round in 2022.
• Fintech startup Fintech Farm and SaaS SMM platform PromoRepublic raised funding rounds during the first months of the full-scale war in Ukraine.
• AllRight, an online language school for children, entered the 2022 Technology Fast winners list by Deloitte and increased its unit economics by three times in spite of quitting eight countries and staff reduction.
• Awesomic, a platform that matches web designers with online businesses, has grown from 70 to 150 employees. It has also doubled its revenue since 2022.
• Cargofy, an AI-driven logistics app, launched its services in five European countries and now has been growing 30% a month in these markets.
• Mate academy, an online coding school, received a $5 million grant from Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund in December.
• Awesomic and Mate academy have got on the list of CEE Rising Stars by Atomico, Google for Startups, and Dealroom.co.

None of the Ukrainian startups from the F1V portfolio has closed since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine.

Investing plans for 2023

F1V plans to invest in at least 10 startups from CEE and strengthen its connections with the European tech community. The fund will also double its support for Ukraine and Ukrainian founders in 2023–2024.