“Many people here and across the world were pissed off about some of his posts,” says Pranskevičius, who is predicated in Kyiv. “But what we’ve seen is that Starlink has continued to work. It’s been invaluable to most individuals and also to people on the front line, where there might be no connectivity at all.” 

An Uncertain Future

Let’s Enhance has continued to develop, regardless of the challenges its founders and workers face. One colleague left to go combat on the entrance traces, and one other signed as much as work on army know-how, becoming a member of the roughly 7,000 tech professionals who joined the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. One yr in the past, the corporate had 27 workers; now, it says it has greater than 40.

But Let’s Enhance is within the minority. According to a 2022 report from TechUkraine, a company that helps startups within the nation, corporations are feeling the warmth of conflict. While 43 % of groups surveyed remained the identical dimension, 37 % of founders say they’ve needed to cut back headcount. And greater than 90 % of Ukrainian startups have indicated they would wish extra monetary assist in an effort to survive the conflict.

Data from analysis agency PitchBook exhibits that early-stage startups in Ukraine raised a collective $17 million in seed or Series A funding in 2022, in comparison with $14.1 million in 2021. Early-stage funding this yr has already surpassed that within the final quarter of 2022, together with $1 million just lately raised by Fuelfinance.

But regardless of promising indicators, the broader prospects for Ukraine’s companies are murkier. In September, The Wall Street Journal reported that, whereas Ukrainian corporations in 2021 raised a complete of $832 million in enterprise capital and from non-public fairness, which usually invests bigger sums, one analyst has estimated that the variety of Ukrainian VC offers was down by no less than 50 % in 2022.

Let’s Enhance’s final fundraising spherical was for $3 million in October 2021, and its founders deliberate to stretch that all through 2022 as they centered on a brand new product. They could attempt to increase extra funding this yr, taking over macroeconomic headwinds, along with the instability of conflict, which have slowed startup investment.

Still, Shvets is optimistic about fundraising. Several funds have cropped up in assist of Ukrainian tech corporations, each within the non-public sector and from governments. Last yr the European Commission pledged €20 million (about $21 million) in assist of tech corporations in Ukraine. Some non-public traders are bolstered by the truth that many Ukrainian startups sell their software in the US.

“I would say the narrative has definitely changed since last year. When the war started, we were all in shock, and so were our investors,” Shvets says. “They were asking, ‘What’s going to happen with Ukraine?’ But we haven’t had any production issues, and right now I actually feel like we have a lot of support.”  

Dmitry Dontov, the chief govt and founding father of information safety firm Spin Technology, additionally says traders appear comfy to maintain working with startups with a heavy Ukrainian presence. Shortly after the invasion, Dontov, a Moldovan primarily based in Silicon Valley, equipped his Ukrainian analysis and improvement group with mills and arrange a protected home for them within the village of Koncha-Zaspa, about 33 kilometers from Kyiv. He relocated a 3rd of the workers to an workplace in Portugal. 

“Initially, investors were worried. They were asking, ‘How many lines of code have been written last month?’” Dontov says. “But over time, I think investors saw that we were taking all the actions necessary to maintain performance.”

Not all startups have fared so effectively. Oleksandr Kosovan, the MacPaw cofounder, additionally invests in different startups via a fund known as SMRK. It invested $1.5 million in a Ukrainian robotics startup simply this week. But Kosovan says that no less than two of the fund’s portfolio corporations shut down throughout the previous yr. 

One of them was Seadora Seafood, a Kyiv-based fish supply startup based in 2019. The firm transported a few of its cargo by air and will now not function inside Ukrainian air area. Another startup promoting informal clothes remains to be working however is struggling; as quickly because the conflict started, Kosovan says, “the demand for such things was reduced to almost zero.”

In the context of conflict, requirements come into sharper focus. So do borders, and bonds with coworkers, and glimpses of the longer term, even when they seem within the type of a candlelit Zoom name or a flash of reflective clothes on a darkish metropolis avenue.