Ukrainian PE & VC Summit 2025: Institutional Funding for Ukraine Panel Highlights

The next breakdown of the second Ukrainian PE & VC Summit will centre on the Institutional Funding for Ukraine panel, featuring Natalia Nazarovets, Barbara Nowakowska, Michał Nowak, and Dmitri Vassiljev. So, what are IFIs up to?

Let’s start with the European Investment Bank. Since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022, it has allocated €2.3 bn in financing, two-thirds of which went for the public sector, roads, power grids, energy connectivity with the EU, social infrastructure, water systems and SMEs. The private sector receives approximately 30% of the funding via intermediaries like local banks.

The main instruments are guarantees and long-term funding, although there are options for private equity investments, too.

Today, Ukraine is priority number one for EIB Global (the arm of EIB that works outside the EU) with the nearest plans to re-engage in the bioeconomy and agriculture sectors. There are the following projects to support Ukraine.

• €420 mln EU4U fund to invest in the private sector, among other things. €200 mln is already deployed;

• EIB is responsible for 25% of public financing for the second Pillar of the Ukraine Facility;

• €300 mln grant under the InvestEU programme to finance and provide guarantees to European export credit agencies. It will help to mitigate the risks of exporting to Ukraine for European companies;

• €400 mln of guarantees under the EU4Business programme via intermediate lending. A joint effort with EIF. €140 mln have already been signed in Kyiv this February;

• €100 mln InvestEU Advisory Hub programme to help counterparts in Ukraine to prepare and implement EIB projects and make the finance accessible, as the process is sophisticated. €40 mln was already utilised.

EIB also invests in PE funds (sector-agnostic), hence Ukrainian ones may fill the application.

Now let’s talk about EBRD. Since the start of the war, they have invested €6.2 bn. Main areas of focus are vital infrastructure, energy and food security, trade finance and private sector resilience. The primary instruments: loan financing, equity financing and risk sharing to reach out to as many businesses as possible.

Interesting note is that EBRD have a reconstruction phase already set up internally for Ukraine, with more funds to allocate when the war ends (up to €3 bn).

EBRD also accelerates the usage of advanced climate mitigation tech in the energy and energy-intensive sectors in Ukraine, using the second Pillar as a source of guarantees for other loan financing.

PE funds and VC projects (up to €25 mln) are accessible. Direct financing is available as well in the range of €10-200 mln, while the average loan size is €20 mln.

Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK), on the other hand, is the direct implementor of the Ukraine Investment Framework (UIF) with official accreditation passed from the European Union. Instruments include risk-sharing mechanisms to help businesses in the so-called red zone (Eastern Ukraine) operate.

As for now, 210 loans were extended for almost 150 SMEs, while a quarter of a billion in guarantees for Ukrainian businesses is planned to be deployed over the next 10 years.

UIF allows BGK to extend long-term investment loans in energy, logistics, and construction, while the EU guarantees and investment grants help investments of Ukrainian municipalities and communal companies. This, in turn, allows them to take private debt to finance their investment needs.

Direct financing is also available. The projects must be from €5 to €50 million and meet certain criteria.

The second Ukrainian PE & VC Summit was organised by UVCA in joint efforts with the Polish Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (PSIK), ICU Ventures, Google for Startups Warsaw and Rymarz Zdort Maruta. Technical partner — DreamX.