Ukraine launches State Startup Fund

Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman and Finance Minister Oksana Markarova have officially launched the State Startup Fund, allocating for its setup a total of UAH 390 million from the state budget.

In his opening address, the PM noted that Ukraine, following the example of advanced countries, has received a real tool to support domestic innovative startups.

"Our communication with businesses, with the IT sector has led to the idea that we need to create such a fund, we need to create public mechanisms that will help support Ukrainian startups, implement them, and help fund them... I believe that the supervisory board and the Fund itself, as well as approaches to its formation, are quite progressive. We have filled it with resources. It's 400 million, it's real money that will be used to support such startups," he said.

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Groysman also noted that funding of startups will range from $25,000 to $75,000 per project, whose implementation period is up to two years.

"I think that this year's start should lead to a multiple increase in the funding: today it's 400 million, but I think that in the future it may be 4 billion, but we are yet to get to it," Groysman added.

In turn, Oksana Markarova signed a decree on the appointment of the supervisory board, which will fully manage all processes. The board includes seven members: Olena Kosharna (Horizon Capital), Lesia Sevruk (ECG), Victoria Tigipko (TA Ventures), Charles Whitehead (Cornel Tech), Deputy Finance Minister Yuriy Heletiy, Oleksandr Ryzhenko (State e-Gov agency), and Dmytro Shymkiv (Darnitsa).