Ukrainian startups are increasingly coming out on crowdfunding platforms, including the world's largest ones of Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Their goal is to search for the first customers and orders, additional PR and market analysis. Also there are some more experienced projects that have several successful campaigns in stock.
2017 has already become one of the "richest" for successful crowdfunding campaigns in the history of Ukrainian start-ups already in the first 7 month of the current year.
According to the Research committee of the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA), 35 campaigns have been launched at Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the most popular global crowdfunding platforms, since the beginning of 2017.
“According to the annual Investment market Overview by UVCA - most start-ups received seed stage investments in 2016. Crowdfunding platforms can be an excellent alternative for earlier stage products. Also, the campaign success will be an additional argument for potential investors”, told Olga Afanasyeva Executive Director of UVCA
Interestinly, most of the projects (83%) have successfully raised the claimed amounts. As of mid-August 2017, Ukrainian projects have collected USD 1,895,252, four times more the initial compound goals.
Kickstarter is more popular among Ukrainian developers, 27 campaigns (77% of all projects) were launched on this platform in 2017. Indiegogo, in its turn, is used as an additional channel for raising funds. For example, start-ups Luciding, Senstone, Hushme practiced parallel launch of promotional campaigns on two platforms at once.
Obviously, projects are more carefully prepared for the access to crowdfunding platforms: they are thinking ahead of PR strategies and working with future backers, told Marianna Yarosh head of the UVCA research committee
The most successful campaigns in 2017 by the criterion as the ratio of the claimed goal against collected funds were:
1 - Jollylook (The First Cardboard Vintage Instant Camera), which managed to collect $ 377K instead of $15K initially declared.
2 - Senstone (Stylish wearable for capturing spontaneous ideas on the go) - the project raised $370K in total.
3 - UGEARS Hurdy-Gurdy (unique mechanical musical model) - managed to collect more than $290K.
Unfortunately, there is not always an opportunity to determine the Ukrainian origin of a project, as almost half of the projects indicate their location in the United States. This is due to their focus on the global market. But in the recent years, more one can meet Ukrainian cities in the description of projects at the crowdfunding platforms.
