UK-based limited partners Venrex and Samos Investments are this week helping launch a new venture capital firm aimed at investing in startups primarily led by Ukrainians in the war-torn country and abroad. . LP is best known as an early institutional investor in the successful early-stage startup funds Seedcamp and Entrepreneur First.
1991 Ventures is the brainchild of Ukrainian brothers Denis and Viktor Gursky, who are well known for running incubation and accelerator programs in the country.
The UK-based venture capital firm has launched a £15 million ($18.8 million) fund to invest in startup talent in both Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).
Some may say you should invest in Ukrainian startups at a time when Ukraine is fighting for its life against Russia's brutal invasion, but as we recently covered, two years after the invasion, , it's clear that the Ukrainian-born startup is still doing well.
The Gursky brothers have previously supported more than 200 startups between 2016 and 2024 through their incubators Social Boost and 1991 Accelerator.
Many of them were outside their hometown of Mariupol, which became famous for its heroic battles with Russia and where the team relocated to a safer location. Startups supported to date include legal tech startup AXDRAFT. European toll payment app eTolls. and cybersecurity company Osavul.
Denis Gursky, founding partner of 1991 Ventures, told me in an interview: “There is a wealth of untapped talent in Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe…My brother Viktor and I want to create a pipeline of high-quality deal flow there.”
He said the fund's LP backers are “very interested in leveraging Eastern Europe and Ukraine in particular.”
Gursky also said, “It is very difficult for Ukrainian founders to expand into London. Therefore, we provide them with pre-seed or seed funding so that they can access larger rounds in the future and We want to help them understand that the UK can be a springboard to global funding.”
But 1991 Venture isn't the only Ukrainian-born fund vying for the attention of its fellow founders.
There's also Roosh Ventures, a Ukrainian VC fund behind Reface AI, a face-swapping app that has been downloaded more than 250 million times to date, and Payroll, which allows companies to pay salaries to people in more than 150 countries. Supports calculation solution Deel.
Additionally, SID Venture Partners was launched by outsourcing company Sigma Software and the co-founders of IdeaSoft and Datrics products.
SMRK – founded in 2013 by MacPaw founders Oleksandr Kosovan and Andrii Dovzhenko – has investments in Osavul, Deus Robotics, Aspichi and Prengi.
Then there's Flyer One Ventures, which is behind Vochi, Allset, PromoRepublic, and more.
Finally, TA Ventures is probably the best-known and most active Ukrainian VC internationally, led by the almost ubiquitous Viktoriya Tigipko.
According to Crunchbase, the company has invested in more than 200 startups, including 15 in Ukraine, and 42 have exited.
Of course, many of the technology companies Ukraine creates in the coming years are likely to be “dual-use” or defense-related. For example, nearly 200 companies produced drones in Ukraine last year, up from seven in 2022.