Ukraine - the Next Startup Nation
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Transcript of Ukraine - the Next Startup Nation
Ukraine – the next startup nation
Investor Day Central and Eastern Europe, Kyiv 2014
Aviram Eisenberg
Are you Crazy?
“A lot of people ask me if I am crazy?““You are living in Ukraine? In these times???”
Well, I live in Israel, we are kinda used to state of war…
I am just replacing this:
With this:
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The First Time I Came to Ukraine…
8 Years ago I came to Ukraine for the first time…
I put on a nice suit (so I thought) and shopped for a good development partner
Everybody was talking with me about the IT Industry (and I thought this “High-Tech” with Russian accent
IT = Selling Development Services High-Tech = Selling Developed Products
How do we turn the IT industry to High-Tech (and not just by changing the accent)
* according to the World Bank
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About Me
Father of 3 wonderful children
High-Tech professional for the last 30 years
- Computer geek in my teenage days- Platoon commander in the Army Intelligence (computer related)- Computer Science Graduate from the Technion- Chief Architect at Mind CTI- Founder and CEO Of Ignite – a global IT company- Chairman of the Israeli R&D Managers forum
Lives in Kiev (Ukraine is my second home!)
* according to the World Bank
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Country History
66 years
22,072 km2
23 years
603,628 km2
Territory
Age
Population
8,14 mln 44,29 mln
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Israel – the land of the entrepreneurial spirit
Wars
10 wars (every 5-10 years)
1947-1949, 1956, 1967, 1967-1970, 1973, 1982-2000, 2008-2009, 2010, 2012, 2014
Daily living under possible terrorist attacks
now
WarsWars
High level of risk tolerance!Just remember the proverb,
“the entrepreneur that died without ever going bankrupt had a premature death…”
Israel is the Startup Nation
Tel-Aviv comes is #2 in the top startup ecosystems in the world
R&D centers of Intel, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, IBM, etc.
450-500 startups are established every year
each month 10 companies move to New York
distributed and powerful angel investors network
most venture capital per capita: 2.5 times more than the U.S. and 30 times more than Europe
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Startup ecosystem
70
2000
7
50
500 +
Angel investors
VC funds
Active startups
5000 +
How Did it Start?
But, it was not always like that!
30 years ago Israel’s was very much like Ukraine – selling IT services to the USA
The Israeli Army produced excellent developers
International companies came to shop for good (and cheap) developers and established branches (Motorola, then Intel, then Microsoft…)
With time, developers left the big companies and started small innovative product companies in the same vertical
Investor-friendly government policy brought more big companies
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How Did it Start?
Few startups were sold to international companies
Then came the VCs and the private investors
And the rest is history…
You can read the bookhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-up_Nation
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Israel and Ukraine – different but alike!
High motivation for High education (the Jewish mam factor)
The hunger to succeed
Individualistic and entrepreneurial spirit
The need to control your own destiny
Tolerance to Risk
Flexible mind – the ability to overcome difficulties
Opportunistic mentality – the other side of difficulty is opportunity!
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So how do we do that???
You are barking at the wrong tree!!!
The bad news: the public sector WILL DO NOTHING!
The good news: Ukrainians are practical people – they ALWAYS JOIN SUCCEESS
The private sector has to ACT!
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Ukrainian startup incubators
________________________________________________________________
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The next step is for IT companies to open on-site incubators, R&D and startup programs encouraging more entrepreneurship!
Example: Cikklum announced opening of own incubation center.
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Conclusion - new incubator coming, join!
Ignite plans to open a new incubator in Kyiv
Focus Homeland and cyber security
Medical devices
Social and Mobile gaming
SW tools and SW Infrastructure
If you are interested to take part in any form, come to talk or drop a line to [email protected]
We are looking for Angels
VC investors
Startups
Mentors
Tech advisers
Entrepreneurs
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Thank you for attention!
Follow me
facebook.com/aviram.eisenberg
twitter.com/aviram
linkedin.com/in/AviramEisenberg
AviramEisenberg.com