Ukrainian VC firm ZAS Ventures announces its official launch

ZAS Ventures, Ukrainian venture early-stage venture advisory firm, has announced the official launch. Startups can already apply on the firm’s website. AIN.Capital tells the main details.

Primary information about ZAS Ventures

Ukrainians Andrew Zinchuk and Artem Volkhonskyi founded ZAS Ventures. Both are located in Ukraine. The firm is incorporated in the USA with an office in San Francisco and Kyiv. In addition to Ukrainians, ZAS Ventures also has American partners:

• Dave Matli, who worked at Warner Bros. and Disney, has extensive experience as a CMO in the Valley, building Growth Marketing teams. Made the Harry Potter franchise the most profitable in the world.
• Andrew Call. He worked at Uber and Facebook and is developing his own recruiting company and executive coaching.
• A third partner in the US joined recently; his name has yet to be released. He is known to be the founder of one of the famous venture firms in New York.

Initially, ZAS Ventures targeted opportunities in Eastern Europe, but after the start of the full-scale invasion, ZAS Ventures changed its focus exclusively to Ukrainian founders. The goal is to help revive the Ukrainian economy by creating fast-growing, innovative companies and jobs in IT.

The firm seeks to partner with up to 30 Ukranian pre-seed stage startups and, in the future, help them raise a seed round in a year.

ZAS Ventures will connect its startups to up to 20 other partner firms in the USA and will consider expanding its relationships on its own.

What startups are considering

• Ukrainian founders, regardless of their current place of residence, but at least 50% of the team must be in Ukraine.
• Startups in any sphere (B2B, B2C, SaaS) with rare exceptions – ZAS Ventures does not invest in Web3 and hardware.
• Projects at the post-MVP stage, which are focused on the American (preferably) or European market.

You can apply through the website by filling out a form or by recommendation from other ZAS Ventures affiliates. There, you can schedule office hours with representatives of the firm.

“Once a week, we have several hours when any startup can write to us, send their pitch deck, and book a call with me or one of the partners – to get to know us and get a consultation,”

Andrew Zinchuk commented.

According to him, it is better to come to ZAS Ventures at least six months before the startup starts raising:

“Most founders do not have previous contacts or relationships with venture capital firms. They start to raise a round when they are running out of money – this is wrong. Because fundraising can take from 2 to 6 months. We have to get to know each other, see how the team works, how the founders take feedback, how they implement it, and how well they deliver. And most importantly, how they give updates on their product. It is important for us to go through this path together so that when a startup meets our criteria, we can make an investment decision very quickly. Throughout this period, we are ready to help and mentor.”

Since the announcement, ZAS Ventures’ partners have already considered almost 100 candidate startups and are preparing to close the first deal soon.

In March 2023 ZAS Ventures invested $120,000 in ZEELY. The deal was completed through the ZASV Syndicate.