Top 20 Startups in Ukraine to Be Proud Of
Grammarly, Reface, People.ai, GitLab, Petcube, Jooble, and Genesis – are successful companies known worldwide; among them are recognized unicorns. However, there are only a few who know that they were founded by Ukrainians. Ukraine has something to be proud of! Many startups founded here are well-known globally and rightfully receive international recognition and significant investments.
Let’s discover the 20 most outstanding and successful startups founded by Ukrainians.
We present them chronologically by the year they were found: from the oldest to the youngest.
Jooble
A global IT product company, the main product of which is an international job search website, which ranks among the top ten most visited employment resources in the world.
The site operates as an aggregator in 69 countries, collecting job vacancies from over 140,000 sources. It significantly simplifies the job search for candidates, as all relevant offers are available on one website.
Another area of work is Jooble Venture Lab, a startup studio that finds projects and ideas regarding employment and professional self-realization. Jooble Venture Lab operates as a community for everyone responsible for launching new products with Jooble. Any employee of the company can propose an idea.
The company was founded in 2006 by Roman Prokofiev and Yevhen Sobakarov, students at the time.
Since 2021, Jooble has been a remote-first company, believing that talented people can create great projects from anywhere in the world, and an office is not necessary for this. Jooblers now work from outside 25 countries worldwide. To facilitate better interaction, communication, and support for each other, the company opens many hubs for its employees.
Genesis
A co-founding IT company that builds global technology businesses together with the best entrepreneurs from Central and Eastern Europe. It is one of the largest developers of non-gaming applications globally.
The total number of Genesis app downloads is over 300 million. Every month, tens of millions of people use Genesis digital products, and the company is one of the largest partners of Facebook, Google, Snapchat, and Apple in Eastern Europe.
The startup was founded in 2008 by Vladimir Mnogoletniy and Vasiliy Ulyanov.
The company’s first product was the Ukrainian social network Connect.ua. Since then, the Genesis ecosystem has grown to over 3,000 people, with dozens of technology businesses developing for markets in the US, Europe, and Africa.
The company acts as a co-founder for businesses, providing necessary expertise and resources and supporting the project until it becomes a fully independent company.
In particular, companies such as Jiji, Keiki, and Headway were born and became independent in Genesis. The ecosystem currently includes companies like OBRIO, Boosters, AMO, Universe, and over 20 other technology businesses at the startup stage.
MacPaw
MacPaw is a software development company founded in 2008 in Kyiv by Oleksandr Kosovan (a student at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute at the time).
The company's first product was the CleanMyMac app for macOS, designed to clean and optimize Apple computers. Later, they created other popular applications: CleanMyMac X, Setapp, Gemini 2, The Unarchiver, and others.
The most well-known product of MacPaw is the CleanMyMac application, which had over 20 million downloads as of 2020. According to the company, over 30 million people use its products worldwide.
The company is based in Kyiv and has an office in California (USA).
One of the world’s largest collections of operational vintage Mac computers and Apple devices is housed at MacPaw headquarters, which includes over 323 exhibits, including the personally signed Macintosh 128K by Steve Wozniak. Olexander Kosovan acquired the first collection of exhibits for the museum from New York’s Tekserve at the 2016 auction. The collection includes rare models such as the Apple III (1980), Apple IIe, and Lisa, released in 1983.
AirSlate
A global SaaS company that serves over a hundred million users worldwide with solutions for automating business processes and document management without coding.
The company’s solutions for PDF editing, electronic signature workflow, and business process automation enable users to transform their businesses to work faster and easier digitally. airSlate, pdfFiller, signNow, and USLegal make up the company’s award-winning product portfolio.
Founded in Boston in 2008 by Ukrainian IT entrepreneur Vadim Yasinovsky. The startup was initially called PDF Filler and initially worked with PDF documents. Later, Borys Shakhnovich joined the project. Today, AirSlate is considered a global leader in workflow automation.
Grammarly
Grammarly is an online platform based on artificial intelligence (which analyzes language) and helps to write English texts (by providing recommendations for improving texts grammatically and stylistically).
The company was founded in 2009 by Ukrainians Alex Shevchenko, Max Lytvyn, and Dmytro Lider.
Initially, the service was called Sentenceworks and was oriented towards the educational market. Later, the name was changed to EssayRater (to attract students). Only in May 2010 did the name Grammarly appear.
Currently, the service operates in various interfaces: as a web editor on the Grammarly website, a browser plugin, a desktop application, a mobile keyboard, etc.).
Grammarly has offices in Kyiv (Ukraine), San Francisco and New York (USA), Vancouver (Canada), and Berlin (Germany).
As of 2020, 30 million people use Grammarly daily. In 2020 alone, Grammarly provided users from around the world with 1.2 trillion recommendations for improving texts.
Grammarly was included in the “World’s Most Innovative Companies 2019” ranking in the “Artificial Intelligence” category by Fast Company and in the list of “Best Companies to Launch a Career” (Wealthfront’s Career-Launching Companies) by Wealthfront in 2020 and 2021.
In 2020 and 2021, Forbes included Grammarly in the Cloud 100 ranking dedicated to the world’s best companies working with cloud technologies.
Depositphotos
Depositphotos is a marketplace with over 250 million royalty-free images, videos, and music files. This commercial platform brings together authors of high-quality licensed content with buyers and helps professionals globally realize their best projects.
The company was founded in Kyiv in November 2009 by Dmitry Sergeev.
In 2021, the Depositphotos library crossed the threshold of 200 million files. The startup grew into an international holding with offices in six countries.
In addition to the photo bank, the company has other internal projects and startups. For example, Crello (now VistaCreate) is an online graphic design tool that allows you to quickly and without professional skills create designs for social media, blogs, marketing materials, and other types of advertising. Bird in Flight is an online magazine about photography and visual culture. “WAS” is an online magazine featuring exciting stories from around the world that combine the past with the present in a visual storytelling format.
Ajax Systems
Ajax Systems is a technology company that develops wireless and wired security systems with smart home capabilities. On top of that, they have a full-cycle production.
It was founded in Kyiv in 2011 by Oleksandr Konotopskyi.
The company’s main product is the professional wireless Ajax security system. It can protect the home from both inside and outside. In addition, Ajax systems have convenient navigation (applications), advanced software, and the most necessary and highest quality sensors (motion, glass break, smoke, temperature rise, leakage, etc.).
The company designs hardware and software for security devices. Depending on the complexity, one device development takes from 6 months to 2.5 years.
The company has full-cycle production – automated PCB assembly (SMD lines), conveyor assembly of devices, automated firmware of software, and packaging. Plus, they use testing stands and proprietary software to test the products.
The company’s products are sold in more than 120 countries worldwide and have over 1 million users.
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the support of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, the company released the “Air Alarm” application to inform about air raids. The application does not require registration and does not collect user data.
Preply
Preply is an online language-learning platform that connects tutors with students using machine-learning algorithms. The platform operates in 180 countries worldwide, has about 35,000 tutors, and supports 50 languages. Learning takes place virtually – through online communication.
It was founded in 2012 by Ukrainians Kirill Bigai, Sergii Lukyanov, and Dmytro Voloshyn. Its offices are currently located in Barcelona, New York City, and Kyiv, and employees work in 30 countries across Europe, the USA, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
The company offers tutoring services in over 120 different fields, both individual and corporate sessions. According to the company, tutors teach an average of 30,000 lesson hours per month, with prices ranging from $2 to $100 per hour.
Petcube
Petcube is a company that creates gadgets for pet owners.
Petcube Inc. was founded in September 2012 by Yaroslav Azhnyuk, Andriy Klymenko, and Oleksandr Neskin. The idea of creating the company arose from Neskin when he was looking for a way to entertain his dog, Rocky.
The company's first product, Petcube, is a device that allows users to remotely monitor, talk to, and play laser games with their pets through a mobile app. It had a cube-shaped form and included a wide-angle camera, laser pointer, microphone, and speaker. Later on, the project launched a range of other products (Petcube Play 2 – a camera with a laser pointer, Petcube Bites 2 – a camera with treats, Petcube Cam – a camera with a veterinary chat, etc.).
In March 2014, Petcube released an app on iOS. In 2018, the Petcube Care platform was launched, offering various products for pets.
The company has offices in Kyiv (Ukraine), San Francisco (USA), and Shenzhen (China). The development of Android and iOS apps takes place in Kyiv.
GitLab
GitLab is a cloud-based code repository and DevOps platform for collaboration, allowing developers to quickly create software for efficient customer service.
In 2014, the startup was founded by Ukrainian Dmytro Zaporozhets and Dutchman Sid Sijbrandij. The platform is created for the convenience of working with shared code and its versions from different parts of the world.
The main functionality of GitLab is a repository management system, where developers can view, check, merge, and perform daily tasks, often requiring a command-line interface.
The main part of the user interface is based on Ruby on Rails, which runs tasks through a special pool on the Redis server for an internal assistant written in Go, called GitLab Runner. PostgreSQL stores all data about users, repositories, wiki documents, and other files. In turn, Git manages all repositories through the GitLab Shell system.
The system is used by more than 100,000 organizations, including NASA, CERN, Alibaba, Invincea, O’Reilly Media, Leibniz-Rechenzentrum (LRZ), and the Jülich Research Center.
Restream
Restream is a streaming service currently headquartered in Austin, Texas. It allows simultaneous broadcasting of video content to multiple platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and LinkedIn.
Initially functioning as a platform for gamers and streamers, it later became a marketing tool for businesses. The service, among others, was used by the current President of the United States, Joe Biden, as reported in an interview with the president’s press service. Other users of the service include Slack, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Mailchimp, Dyson, Discovery Channel, and the British Boiler Room studio.
The startup was founded in 2014 by Ukrainians Alexander Khuda and Andrew Surzhynskyi.
Currently, Restream’s main service is cloud-based online streaming, allowing the author to broadcast video to various streaming services and video sites simultaneously. The service works with 35 streaming platforms from the USA, UK, China, India, Germany, Japan, and Korea, allowing streams to be broadcast to any platform with RTMP support.
LetyShops
The goal of LetyShops is to provide internet stores with as many customers as possible. In return, it rewards customers with cashback, reimbursing a portion of their expenses for purchases.
The project was launched in 2014 by Vinnytsia native Igor Gnatovsky with partners. He built a business worth over $100 million based on mutual benefit for customers and entrepreneurs from Ukraine, Germany, Brazil, Poland, India, the USA, and other countries.
The company’s product returns a portion of the money spent on online purchases, actually utilizing a CPA model. The user transitions from the service’s website to a partner store, makes a purchase, and LetyShops receives a commission for the referred purchase. Then, this commission is split in half: 50% goes to the company, and 50% goes to the user. Often, even more than 50% goes to the user.
The service collaborates with 2,949 stores worldwide. Before the war and the exit from the russian and belarusian markets, there were 3,900. Currently, LetyShops is the largest cashback service in Ukraine, Spain, and Poland.
Allset
Allset is a technology company that develops and implements software for dining establishments. Allset enables pre-ordering in restaurants, table reservations, advance payment for orders, and leaving tips.
The company was founded in September 2015 by Ukrainians Stas Matviyenko and Anna Polishchuk. Allset began with the mobile payment service Settle, which allowed settling bills in restaurants using a smartphone, including leaving tips. Kyiv was chosen for the launch, where the technological development of the product took place.
Afterward, the product was improved by adding a pre-ordering service. In 2015, the team launched the Allset app in the US market. The new app allowed ordering lunches in business districts of cities and addressed the issue of waiting in restaurants during peak hours.
The service monetization is based on a commission: the app charges restaurants 15% of the order amount. Allset operates in restaurants through a mobile app for smartphones, fax, email, SMS, or direct integration with a POS terminal.
Rentberry
Rentberry is a Ukrainian real estate startup. Initially launched in the US market, the service has later expanded to Europe and Asia as well. The company was founded in 2015 by Alex Lubinsky and Lily Ostapchuk. Product development is based in Kyiv.
It is a platform for long-term housing rentals that transfers all processes – apartment viewing, contract signing, and monthly payments – online. Rentberry’s feature lies in allowing users to offer their price for an apartment, essentially turning the rental process into an auction.
According to the company, Rentberry currently operates in over 100 countries and has 3 million active users monthly. The platform hosts over 9 million rental listings from landlords daily.
People.ai
The startup positions itself as an AI service that gathers and analyzes data generated by sales managers to provide them with recommendations and ultimately help close deals faster and more efficiently. Operating in the niche of ‘AI for sales,’ it analyzes sales department data and helps improve their efficiency.
Founded in 2016 by entrepreneur Oleg Rogynskyy, originally from Dnipro.
People.ai software can record and analyze employees’ calendars and phone calls, helping companies identify, for example, the optimal number of clients for one salesperson.
With the service, deals worth $100 billion have been closed, and among its clients are companies such as Red Hat, Lyft, Zoom, Dropbox, Zendesk, New Relic, and Splunk.
BetterMe
BetterMe is a Ukrainian IT company that creates products in the Health & Fitness sphere for over 150 million people worldwide.
The company was founded in 2016 in Kyiv by Victoria Repa.
In 2017, the first BetterMe application was launched, later renamed to BetterMe: Health Coaching. In 2018, this application became the number one most downloaded app in the USA.
In 2018, the BetterMe: Meditation & Sleep application was launched, later renamed to BetterMe: Mental Health. Also in 2018, the BetterMen app was created.
In 2021, the company launched the BetterMe Store with its brand of sportswear and products for a healthy and active lifestyle.
In 2022, Apple recognized BetterMe as one of the best workout apps in the world, with 6.5 million active users monthly.
The company is involved in charity work, promoting diversity and inclusivity in the Health & Fitness sphere. In 2021, BetterMe, in collaboration with the Enjoying Life Foundation, created a sports program for the elderly. In March 2022, the BetterMe: Mental Health app, in partnership with Unicef Ukraine, added a section for providing psychological assistance to children during the war.
In 2023, the company launched a collection of bedtime stories in the BetterMe: Mental Health app. Additionally, the BetterMe: Health Coaching app introduced a workout program for amputees.
Liki24
Liki24 is a Ukrainian healthcare startup, a marketplace for searching for medicines in pharmacies, comparing prices, ordering, and delivery. In addition to Ukraine, the service is now also available in Romania, Poland, and Italy.
It’s a service for searching and delivering medicines, helping Ukrainians buy medications without leaving their homes, with savings of up to 30% compared to average pharmacy prices.
Founded in 2017 in Kyiv by Anton Avrinsky, Dmitry Lyatambur, Serhiy Fadeyev, Sergii Kliebanov, and Volodymyr Zubenko.
Due to the pandemic and changes in consumer habits, the medication delivery and pickup startup experienced fantastic growth throughout 2020. The company’s turnover increased from $5 to $20 million, with the revenue of the Ukrainian legal entity exceeding $1 million. This allowed the company to expand beyond Ukraine.
Monobank
Monobank is a Ukrainian neobank serving over 7 million clients. It holds the #2 spot in Google Play and #2 in the App Store among the most popular financial apps in Ukraine. The daily active user count reaches 1.3 million. In 2018, it was recognized as the best Ukrainian FinTech startup by the PaySpace Magazine Awards and as the “Neobank of the Year” by FinAwards.
Founded in 2017. The developer is Fintech Band, owned by Oleksandr and Dmytro Dubilet, Oleg Gorokhovskyi, Mykhailo Rogalskyi, Volodymyr Yatsenko, Liudmyla Shmalchenko, and Vadym Kovaliov.
The product provides service without branches, with almost all services available through the mobile application. For some operations (depositing/withdrawing cash in foreign currency), services are provided exclusively through partner banks.
Reface
Reface is an application that allows users to swap faces in videos or GIFs. The app is based on GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) technology.
It was the first AI application of Ukrainian origin to reach the top spot in the American AppStore, surpassing TikTok, Netflix, and Amazon.
In January 2020, a Ukrainian team of seven individuals (Roman Mogylnyi, Yaroslav Boyko, Oles Petriv, Denys Dmytrenko, Kyrylo Syhida, Dmytro Shvets, and Ivan Altsybeiev) created the Doublicat app, where users could swap faces in GIFs. It received coverage from over 600 global media outlets, including Forbes, Mashable, The Verge, TNW, and The Sun.
Later, the app introduced the feature to swap faces in videos and was renamed Reface.
In August 2020, Reface became the first Ukrainian app to reach the number-one spot in the US AppStore and 17 other countries.
The company’s office is located in Kyiv.
DressX
DressX is a marketplace for digital clothing, an online boutique where they sell digital clothing exclusively. This means that the clothing cannot be physically touched but can be “worn” for appearances on social media, during video calls, and so on.
The startup was founded in the summer of 2020 by Ukrainian women Daria Shapovalova and Natalia Modenova. This startup required neither renting premises nor purchasing clothing nor any resources for production.
To “wear” digital clothing, users need to visit the website, choose a particular item, and pay for the order. It also involves uploading a photo (of good quality and with good lighting).
According to the founders, digital clothing represents a new philosophy because such clothing does not pollute the environment and does not accumulate at home.
* BONUS
SmithySoft – a full-cycle software development consulting company that helps create excellent web products from scratch.
Founded by Ukrainian Igor Bilan in 2019. In 2023, SmithySoft was recognized by Clutch as one of the VR and AR companies that have changed the game in Ukraine. It also made it to the list of the best software development companies in Boston-2023.
Specializes in the development and seamless integration of necessary solutions into existing systems and architectures, combining various complex landscapes of applications, such as legacy systems, digital platforms, and SaaS. For more information, visit: www.smithysoft.com
