Ukrainian PE & VC Summit 2024: Ukrainian Investment Community Panel Highlights

One of the final panels of the Ukrainian PE & VC Summit was dedicated to the Ukrainian Investment Community featuring Roman Nikitov, Konstantin Magaletskyi, Vitali Laptenok, Galyna Isakiv, Kateryna Glazkova, and Victor Koptenkov. Let's check out the notes.

Surprisingly, the financial sector of Ukraine functions like nothing is happening, which wasn’t the case back in 2014. It seems that through the years the economy overall has matured resilience. At present, the real sector is well-positioned to attract funding both from private and institutional investors, including insurance. International partners are active in this field, as the real sector doesn’t need indefinite time to start performing. Good examples are ports, infrastructure, warehouses, and various terminals. Overall, the assets that are engaged in export don’t have unresolved obstacles in pulling in money.

The private sector doesn’t wait for the end of the war and keeps operations. The speakers especially point out the building industry that is booming. Yet, the choke points are in logistics (roads, railways, and infrastructure). Many international companies don’t wait for perfect conditions too, making preparations, albeit non-public. This process can be tracked via tenders and land plot acquisition.

On the other side, we have tech and startups. What about them? The speakers had several facts to show: in the last five years startup value has grown over seven times; only 14% were shut down because of war; two new unicorns; one-third successfully fundraised during the war. Not bad. Overall, tech and IT represent around 7% of Ukraine’s export potential, with the trend of big IT companies to keep growing (both outsourcing, product, and service companies).

Ukrainian funds are still strong enough to attract capital from foreign GPs and LPs. Despite the ongoing war, a minimum of them pulled out the money. However, there are concerns about the startup team's location, thus Ukrainian funds need to do extra convincing.

Regarding “mass” relocation, the speakers’ opinion is that the business simply follows the clients, and there’s no need to dramatize the situation. This happens in a lot of countries. The so-called brain drain was an issue long before the war started, therefore we can’t attribute it solely to security reasons. To fight that, we should create a good environment for entrepreneurs. Also, speakers note that many if not the majority of owners don’t leave Ukraine for good. Even being abroad, the business is still located here.