Ukrainains are in the midst of a war although they are famous for their incredible Tech Apps. But, pre-invasion, the country was a breeding ground for tech startups and has given birth to many notable global tech companies.
The Ukrainian IT industry consists of over 4,000 local IT service companies, and more than 110 leading global companies have established subsidiaries in the country.
Samsung, Microsoft, Ring, Snap, Adobe Commerce (previously Magento), Plarium, Boeing, Siemens, Ericsson – are among the few tech companies established their R&D sector in Ukraine.
Ukraine has been one of Europe’s leading countries in engineering graduates, producing twice as many annually as Britain and Poland. The country produces over 130,000 engineering graduates and 16,000 IT graduates annually.
Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, is the largest IT hub in the country and is home to over 1,000 startups and product companies. Other Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Lviv, and Vinnytsia are also developing major centers of IT activity. The country has been the birthplace of major tech companies that have created a global impact with their products and solutions.
Amid the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict, the tech community in Ukraine stands solid and united.
As Russia surrounds and invades Ukraine as part of its so-called demilitarisation actions, the tech editor at Forbes Ukraine, Mike Sapiton, took it upon himself to emphasize how Ukrainians have contributed to tech that is now mainstream and utilized by all. From WhatsApp to Grammarly, many of the most well-known firms are launched by Ukrainians.
Ukrainian emigrant Jan Koum established the world’s most well-known instant messaging app. Koum was born in Fastiv, where he repositioned to the United States. Currently, WhatsApp is owned and run by Facebook’s parent company Meta.
Incredible Tech Apps Created By Ukrainians
PayPal
The global payment service that was one of the ways to make digital payments was co-founded by Max Levchin, an emigrant. In addition to co-founding PayPal, Levchin was an early investor in Yelp and credited as a producer for the hit film Thank You for Smoking.
Snapchat‘s Masking Tech
The masking technology employed in Snapchat was created by Looksery, a business from Odessa in Ukraine. Yurii Monastyrshin spearheaded it, and the enterprise has offices in both the United States and Ukraine. Do you like operating filters on Snapchat? You own Looksery to thank.
Grammarly
Most people who deal with words daily swear by Grammarly, a service dedicated to assisting people with writing grammatically correct and error-free content. Grammarly is now valued at $13 billion and was founded by Max Lytvyn, Alex Shevchenko, and Dmytro Lider.
Clean My Mac
An app to declutter and speed your Mac, Clean My Mac, was developed by Kyiv-based Mac Paw. Founded in 2008, Mac Paw also offers VPN services and claims to solve “ten tasks with one tool.”
People.ai
Used by mostly Fortune-500 companies, People.ai is a predictive sales management platform that helps companies maximize the performance of their sales teams. Oleg Rogynskyy, a Ukrainian, founded the forum.
Gitlab
Gitlab, a popular DevOps collaboration platform based out of Ukraine, was founded by Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Sid Sijbrandij in 2014. The company helps teams improve cycle time from weeks to minutes, decrease development costs, and boost productivity.
Traces.AI
Traces.AI, a computer vision company based out of Ukraine, has built an AI-based technology to analyze over 2,000 physical traits of a person using security cameras. The company was founded by two Ukrainian techies, Veronica Yurchuk and Kostyantyn Shysh, in 2014. The company recently had developed a tool to track people who have been impacted by COVID-19 and can be potential carriers of the coronavirus.
PetCube
PetCube was established in 2012 in Kyiv, Ukraine, by Alex Neskin, Yaroslav Azhnyuk, and Andrey Klen and is currently headquartered in San Francisco. The company has built WiFi cameras that enable pet owners to interact with their pets remotely using a mobile application while they are away from home. The company has raised USD 14 million in a Series A funding round.
MacPaw
MacPaw, the company behind the famous CleanMyMac app, was founded by Oleksandr Kosovan in 2008 and is headquartered in Kyiv, Ukraine. The company is one of the largest software developers on the Mac market and has more than 4 million users.
Netpeak
Netpeak, the most prominent digital marketing company in Europe, was founded by three Ukrainian entrepreneurs, Dmitrii Piskarev, Andrey Chumachenko, and Artyom Borodatyuk Odesa, Ukraine, in 2006. The company provides SEO, PPS, SMM, email marketing, and mobile app promotion services to improve web traffic for organizations and attract new customers.
Ajax Systems
Ajax Systems, ??a manufacturer of security systems with innovative home capabilities based out of Kyiv, Ukraine, was founded by Aleksander Konotopsky in 2011. The company offers wireless window and door opening sensors and movement sensors. Ajax Systems has raised USD 11 million in over two funding rounds.
RefaceAI
RefaceAI, a face-swapping AI-based Ukrainian company, builds solutions for entertainment, game development, and human interactions. The company was founded by ??Dmytro Shvets, Ivan Altsybieiev, Roman Mogylnyi, Oles Petriv, and Yaroslav Boiko. The system built by RefaceAI can swap faces on statues, paintings, and video game characters, keeping the emotions of the main face intact, even after switching it.
Final Thoughts
The low cost of living in Ukraine and the easy availability of skilled talent have made Ukraine one of the favorite destinations for startups and big tech companies. As a result, the country is home to more than 20,000 tech and Ukrainian venture-backed startups saw a USD 33.8 million investment in 2021, as per a report from Crunchbase.