On February 8, our Association together with the Ukrainian business media MIND held the first meeting of the ReInvest Club in 2024. The signature event once again brought together businesses and investors to discuss and get introduced to commercial projects: from venture capital to the real economy. Here's what was interesting.

Yuriy Yekhanurov, Director of the Institute of Advanced Defense Technologies at the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, opened the meeting. The department was founded last summer with the ambitious goal of becoming a domestic analog of DARPA. Today, developers and scientists are working on 53 areas approved by the General Staff. These include well-known drones, mine clearing, and electronic warfare systems, as well as surprising ones, such as space and putting more satellites into orbit.

In Yuriy's opinion, from a business perspective, the best place to invest in defense tech is in microelectronics. They also discussed the implementation of blockchain technology in Ukraine, the spread of which is being hindered by banks and law enforcement agencies.

Next, Olga Shaverina, head of OIAIP, spoke in detail about grant funding in Ukraine, its opportunities, and specific programs. The undoubted advantage of grants is that they are free, but a significant disadvantage is bureaucracy. Interestingly, until 2014, grants were not available to the private sector, so they were used almost exclusively by NGOs. Now, however, the availability of grants has increased significantly.

The next speaker was Oleksandr Bondarenko, Managing Partner of the Investment Programs Bureau, who devoted his presentation to industrial parks. Currently, there are 75 parks in Ukraine, but most of them need better times. When choosing a park, one should first pay attention to the presence of a management company. In general, the concept, advantages, and bonuses of industrial parks in Ukraine are not bad: thanks to them a company can save 1 million out of 5.

Finally, the guests were invited to pitch projects. Among them were the Hempy Industrial Park, which specializes in the development and production of industrial hemp-based products; the patented coffee cart Coffee Hub; a nozzle with a laser guidance system from the military tech startup M-Fly; another startup, Keynow, which integrates the ability to pay with cryptocurrencies into its website; and an angel syndicate from SID Venture Partners.

The Business Club members also completed a fundraising campaign to purchase floodlights for a platoon of the Mobile Air Defense Fire Group. See you at the next club meeting!