Venture funds launch first Grant IT Fund in Ukraine

Venture capital funds Runa Capital, Almaz Capital, TA Venture and Innovation Park BIONIC Hill create a grant fund Global Technology Foundation (GTF). The fund will provide grants and support to promising Ukrainian IT projects at the pre-seed stage of development.

The main task of GTF is to create an effective mechanism of pre-investment support for start-ups, which would contribute to the development of the venture infrastructure and high-tech business ecosystem. Support will be granted to tech projects in fast-growing industries such as software, Internet technologies, and mobile apps.

Global Technology Foundation is the first IT grant fund in Ukraine. A team of successful entrepreneurs with extensive experience aims to accelerate the development of innovative technologies in Ukraine, develop the culture of entrepreneurship and venture capital business, and create new jobs - the president of GTF Alexey Anikin says. - IT is one of the most promising areas in Ukrainian businesses. We estimate that its share in Ukraine's GDP will increase five or six times in the next few years, from 0.5% to 2.5-3%. GTF will actively contribute to this.

Sergey Belousov: Ukraine has many development centers of international companies, but few of its own. Creating GTF as the main center to incubate global tech startups in Ukraine, we hope to contribute to the emergence of successful Ukrainian companies known and demanded in the global market. Our fund Runa Capital goes globally, and at least a fifth of its portfolio projects is related to Ukraine. We would like to see more of such projects.

Alexander Galitsky: We are interested in seed-stage projects, but startups require more time and attention than Almaz Capital can pay to them. The best format to work with seed companies for us is to get involved in GTF to become a financial partner with mentor features but without the involvement in company’s operations.

Accepting applications for grants from Global Technology Foundation is open since April 16, 2013. The competition welcomes pre-seed IT projects focused on public services, communications, media, education, medicine and health, as well as developments in software for financial and banking sectors, software for mobile devices, cloud computing, e-commerce, mobile apps.

You can submit an application for GTF grant throughout the year at gtf.kiev.ua. The standard amount of financial support for one project is 240K UAH (about 900K RUR).