The Ukrainian Startup Fund held the 30th Pitch Day
On August 20, the Ukrainian Startup Fund held its 30th Pitch Day to select startups for state financing. The event took place in offline mode on the territory of an innovation park UNIT.City. 12 startups made presentations (pitches). All of them are at the seed stage (each of them applies for state grant funding in the amount of $50,000).
InVenture, a specialized business publishing house of the investment market, joined as an event’s media partner.
The event was opened by Ihor Markevych, Project and Program Manager of the Ukrainian Startup Fund. He presented a new tool for support startups — innovative vouchers, as well as revealed intermediate KPIs and statistics, which the Fund managed to collect by the results of more than three hundred teams since becoming operational:
“For 30 pitches, we received 3,600 applications from startups. As of today, 320 teams have presented their ideas, 148 of whom have already received grants. Let’s go further: 65 startups have seized the recent opportunity of the Fund — the Acceleration Program. In addition, all of our winning startups raised $ 32.3 million of additional funding plus $ 28 million of in-kind services. It means that every second startup has raised funding. We are also pleased to announce the official launch of a completely new tool to support startups — the Program of Innovative Vouchers. It is a tool for financing startups’ trips to international conferences.”
Who is the jury made up of?
- Kateryna Degtyar. Chapter director at Startup Grind Kyiv.
- Oleksandr Yatsenko. Managing partner at BRISE Capital.
- Andriy Zaikin. CEO and founder of YEP.
- Oleksandr Riabtsev. Founder of StartupInUA.
- Sergii Dovgopolyy. Managing partner at FeelGoodLabs businesses accelerator.
- Maksym Beshleul. Founder and CEO at MedicalLife.
- Yurii Sereshchenko. Managing partner at Quarter Partners.
The main criteria for evaluating projects at the seed stage are team, market, product, 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 15 points.
The results
This time the audience award according to a vote in the telegram channel was gained by the startup StudyDive.
A special prize from the event partner Unit School of Business in the form of a scholarship for free education at the school for entrepreneurs according to the Berkeley methodology was received by the startup Dnipro-MTO.
Startups DrugCard and Workademy 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):
- SPOKK. A digital insurance platform with affordable microinsurance products and a full range of online services. Users can purchase a policy in a few clicks, file a claim online, find out the decision on the insured event almost instantly and receive a refund directly to their payment card (Kyiv).
- Gravitec. Automated content delivery for media and SMEs based on web push notification technology. Generates up to 25% additional traffic for your website (Kyiv).
- TEHNOTABLE. The only manufacturer of tables with an electronic lifting mechanism in Ukraine, which helps to relieve tension from the back and strengthen the muscles of the whole body (Kyiv).
- StudyDive. Single platform to manage employee development plans that helps companies to increase employees’ learning engagement while decreasing spending on content procurement and management (Kyiv).
- Workademy. Cloud- and subscription-based learning platform to help mid-size businesses to scale the knowledge of any employee to the whole organization with a smart course builder based on a didactical approach. (Kyiv).
- ARbrowser. SaaS platform for interactive and high-quality furniture visualization. This helps to double the sales conversion rate (Kyiv).
- Dnipro-MTO. Mechanical cryogenic freezer with a working temperature of -150°C that effectively runs under an ambient temperature of +32°C and does not require Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) or any other consumables. CTC -150°C will replace liquid nitrogen-based freezers as they are dangerous for the health and life of the personnel, unreliable, require high maintenance costs, and are harmful to the environment (Kyiv).
- Штрафи UA для Бізнесу. A service for legal entities which monitors traffic fines and allows to collect the amount of the fine from the violator on time and to increase the level of responsible driving in Ukraine (Odessa).
- DrugCard. SaaS for automated medical literature monitoring. Designed to help pharmaceutical and contract research organizations automate routine processes, optimize costs and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements (Kyiv, Lviv).
- Reelly. Online distributor of realtor`s sales for developers. And for agents, we are a platform that opens access to thousands of properties with a guarantee of the payment of commissions (Odessa, Kyiv).
- Quant. The first inverter stabilizers with advanced protection. The main feature of an inverter stabilizer is 100% protection of the connected load. The defining feature of the Quant inverter stabilizer is that it provides a previously unavailable level of protection against dangerous voltage spikes and other problems in electrical networks (Lviv, Zhytomyr).
- Kidium. An online platform for selling and buying kids’ stuff, booking services or specialists for a child, searching for government or private organizations for children, communicating, public posts, and knowledge about kids’ events in your city (Uzhgorod).
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 29th Pitch Day 5 startups were funded: The Great Catalog, Real Talk Sport, Elai, MAGBULB, and IDvizer.
