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August 2, 2021

The Ukrainian Startup Fund held the 29th Pitch Day

On July 30, the Ukrainian Startup Fund held its 29th Pitch Day to select startups for state financing. The event took place in offline mode on the territory of the international startup hub LIFT99 Kyiv Hub. 12 startups made presentations (pitches). All of them are at the pre-seed stage (each of them applies for state grant funding in the amount of $25,000).

The event was opened by Tetiana Chaikovska, CEO at LIFT99 Kyiv Hub where the event took place:

«Pitch is not a competition. If a part of the community wins, even one startup, as a result, everyone wins, because it encourages the development of the whole ecosystem. Always remember that a pitch is not about a grant. Your ultimate goal is to make an exit. We decided to build our startup hub two years ago just to help Ukrainian teams grow from the early stages that are here right now. For startups, we offer a quality network that allows them to search for customers, investors, and scale, especially in the Baltic countries».

Who is the jury made up of?

  • Kateryna Degtyar. Chapter director at Startup Grind Kyiv.
  • Oleksandr Riabtsev. Founder of StartupInUA.
  • Oleksandr Romanishin. Advisor to the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.
  • Arkadiy Vershebenyuk. Partner at BeeVentures.
  • Igor Pertsiya. Venture partner at TA Ventures, regional director of iCLUB, advisor to the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.
  • Vadym Rogovskiy. CEO and founder of Startup School Online.
  • Yurii Sereshchenko. Managing partner at Quarter Partners.

The main criteria for evaluating projects at the pre-seed stage are team, market, idea, the feasibility of financing, strategy. In each category, a maximum is 5 points (in total maximum is 25). The passing score for a recommendation to the Supervisory Board for a grant is 12 points.

The results

This time the audience award according to a vote in the telegram channel was gained by the startup Real Talk Sport.

The team The Great Catalog received a special prize from LIFT99 Kyiv Hub 2 months of free access to the hub space plus mentorship from the experts of the hub.

Startups  SEOLocal, IDvizer, and Real Talk Sport received a special prize from the event partner iHUB in the form of three months of free use of their workplaces.

According to the results of the Competition Сommittee’s assessments, the following startups rating list was formed (from the highest score to the lowest):

  1. The Great Catalog. A marketplace of 3D models for designers and architects (Kyiv).
  2. Real Talk Sport. A web-based CRM system for administering businesses and sports federation organizations (Kyiv).
  3. Elai. An AI-based solution, that allows you to generate interactive videos with a human presenter from text, without the need for actors, film crews, and expensive equipment (Kyiv).
  4. MAGBULB. The world’s first magnetic light bulb socket. A unique plastic adapter, which consists of two parts, one part of which is screwed into the lamp holder instead of a light bulb, and the other part is put on a light bulb. Easy, quick, and safe way to replace a light bulb (Lviv).
  5. IDvizer. An AI-based facial ID verification engine. Built-in security tool made to measures of your business model (Kyiv).
  6. MOODua. An AI-powered business-gifting platform helping companies to drive loyalty at scale (Kyiv).
  7. FOPkasa. An application that consolidates 3 functions to support small entrepreneurs to go online using just a smartphone. It’s a combination of the cash register, commodity accounting, and analytical reports to boost sales (Lviv).
  8. Masthead. A data observability platform that uses ML. It is designed to prevent the company’s decision-makers from making wrong, wasteful decisions based on corrupted data, not knowing that data was invalid (Kyiv).
  9. Wonder Mom. A mobile application that helps moms around the world overcome stress and anxiety through meditation and daily reflection (Kyiv).
  10. CleanOK. An online service for instant booking of car wash (Sumy).
  11. Oyko. A next-generation marketplace, a platform enhancing retail customer engagement and loyalty (Kyiv).
  12. SEOLocal. Messaging platform for location-based marketing for offline services that increases the flow of customers to locations (Kyiv).

At the USF Supervisory Board meeting, which will take place in the near future, it will be decided which startups will receive grant funding.

We remind that according to the results of the 28th Pitch Day 10 startups were funded: Agrotop UA, Clasee, MySat UA, Sugarrr, LuLL world, Deputy, Zeely, Smart ION, SolidERP і Insolar-T.

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