Against the backdrop of a prolonged cooling of Ukraine’s IT market, the cofounding model has begun to gain traction rapidly — a model in which a product company or startup is launched not only with the founder’s or a fund’s capital, but through an entire ecosystem that provides capital, analytics, marketing, legal support, and ready-made operational infrastructure. Ekonomichna Pravda writes about this market transformation, while Genesis and SKELAR now openly position themselves as platforms for jointly creating new technology businesses.
For the investment market, this is an important signal: part of the demand for early-stage capital in Ukraine’s tech sector is increasingly being met not by traditional venture funds, but by venture builder platforms themselves. According to UVCA, Ukrainian technology companies raised $498 million in equity and grant funding in 2025, of which $191 million went to the early stage, while defence tech became the most dynamic segment, attracting more than $129 million. This means that competition for early-stage deals has intensified, and non-fund startup launch models have become even more relevant.
At the same time, the IT sector itself is already showing signs of stabilization. In 2025, Ukraine’s IT services exports increased to $6.66 billion, up 3.3% year-on-year, while computer services accounted for 12.3% of the country’s total exports. In addition, 33% of tech company executives expect further growth in the sector. Against this backdrop, cofounding looks less like an anti-crisis improvisation and more like a new formula for scaling — especially for product teams seeking to bring new businesses to global markets faster.
One of the most visible beneficiaries of this model is Genesis. On its official cofounder page, the company directly emphasizes that under a classic VC model, after three or four rounds a founder often retains only 10–20% of the company, whereas in partnership with Genesis, a founder can preserve a larger stake while gaining access to a ready-made back office — from finance and legal to PR, compliance, and expertise from across the ecosystem. At the same time, Genesis says it does not “spray and pray” with hundreds of launches, but instead works with dozens of businesses and expects at least half of them to become successful cases.
SKELAR is moving in a similar direction and officially describes itself as a venture builder of international tech companies. The company already has more than 1,000 employees and has declared a goal of building 10 Ukrainian product companies within five years. In other words, this is no longer about isolated startups, but about serial “manufacturing” of businesses built on top of shared infrastructure.
Another marker of the model’s maturity is Kiss My Apps, which, according to the company’s profile on DOU, already unites more than 30 AI-first products and 100+ million users. Ekonomichna Pravda also notes that within the cofounding model, a cofounder can receive a starting budget of up to $500,000 for the first six months, market-level compensation, and an equity option after achieving initial results. In effect, this already looks less like conventional hiring and more like a structured early-stage investment format in a future founder.
It is telling that this same wave is already producing projects capable of attracting external capital. In March 2026, the first product of the new studio Rist Labs — the edtech platform Kodree — raised $10 million in user acquisition financing from PvX Partners for global scaling. This is one of the first signals that Ukrainian venture builder models can become not only an internal launch mechanism, but also a полноценный source of new investable companies for outside investors.
As a result, cofounding in Ukraine is gradually transforming from a management model into a distinct investment segment. For the market, this means the emergence of a new deal funnel: instead of waiting for “raw” startups to come from the market, investors will increasingly receive projects that have already passed initial validation of demand, unit economics, and team quality inside strong technology ecosystems. This does not replace traditional venture capital, but it does make the market more structured and closer to the model of serial company creation that has long existed globally. According to industry research, the number of startup studios worldwide doubled to 877 during 2018–2023, which only reinforces interest in this format in Ukraine as well.
