“Kiev potrebbe essere la Silicon Valley”: un nuovo fondo da 50 milioni di euro per startup svilupperà l’ecosistema tecnologico ucraino

From the article: If most investors have opted to watch Ukraine from a distance during Russia’s ongoing invasion, Charles Whitehead and Dominique Piotet are undeterred, launching a 50 million euro venture capital fund to boost local talent and help put Ukrainian startups on the global map.

The two veterans of Ukraine’s start-up and tech scene inaugurated the Ukraine Phoenix Tech Fund (UPTF) on Sept. 29 — a project that’s been in the works since 2019 and the first venture capital fund to focus solely on Ukrainian tech.

With the European Investment Bank (EIB) committing 15 million euros, it’s also the first VC fund to be backed by Europe’s reconstruction fund for Ukraine, EU4U.

“There is this valley of death in Ukraine, where there is no access to capital,” Piotet told the Kyiv Independent in an interview on Oct. 13. “We will help fill that gap and attract other investors who will see us investing and see the opportunity. We want to build this ecosystem.”

UPTF will support 50 Ukrainian tech startups from early stage through to Series A, starting from 100,000-euro investments, including follow-on capital to keep companies growing. The fund has several companies lined up, thanks to Whitehead’s Ukraine-based eo Business Incubators accelerator program. The first investment is planned by the end of the year.

The fund is open to Ukraine-based tech startups across sectors — from renewable energy to AI. It’s leaving out defense tech for now, mostly because it wasn’t on investors’ radar when the duo began raising money for the fund nearly five years ago.

Whitehead and Piotet, the former CEO of Kyiv’s startup mecca Unit City, want companies to scale globally and help Ukraine retain its talent while opening the doors for women entrepreneurs, displaced people, and veterans.

“There are others looking at Ukraine,” Whitehead said. “They probably won’t put 100% of their effort into Ukraine. But if we can get them to focus more on Ukraine because we’ve built a system, then we’ll have done our job.”

Interesting take on what should be good news. But I do understand. There are many cities in America that I couldn’t afford to live.
All that to say, welcome to the west, where we put insane values on property.

There is a lot of IT and programmers in Ukraine