Ukraine's 17 million internet users currently spend more time online than any European country, according to Evgen Leng, a Kyiv-based industry analyst.
The users, who spend an average of 31 hours a month online, favor sites that offer services and products, while portals that provide email, news aggregation and local search capabilities are the next most popular destinations.
Meanwhile, ubiquitous smartphone users browse the web mostly to download music. Also popular is video watching, much more than reading online newspapers or books.
The IT field has been high on the agenda of Economy Minister Pavlo Sheremeta, along with energy and agriculture. He has several projects in the pipeline, one of which includes forming a foundation with private companies to improve the quality of IT education. Some experts have criticized this approach for not stimulating the overall business environment, but the local IT scene welcomes the measures.
Ukraine’s nascent but fast-growing consumer internet market is estimated at $2 billion, while the IT sector exports $2 billion yearly, according to experts, mostly through outsourcing contracts.
What follows is a list of some of the most promising Ukrainian IT companies, based on Kyiv Post discussions with investors as well as analysts.
Depositphotos
Being a classical photo bank is not easy in a market dominated by global giants such as Agence France-Presse and Thomson Reuters. However, company founder Dmytro Sergeyev decided to face the storm, offering access to its stock of photos, royalty-free images, illustrations and vector art.
One would have to pay $70 for a monthly subscription with a daily download limit of five images. It’s the cheapest online photo service among the most popular ones, according to market players with whom the Kyiv Post spoke.
However, Vlad Voskresensky, founder of software producer Invisible CRM, says beating the competition with lower prices might just not be enough.
Invisible CRM
As Ukraine’s biggest independent software developer, according to Ilia Kenigshtein, senior partner at Hybrid Capital, a venture fund, the company boasts established giants like Microsoft and Oracle among its clientele. “We are not geniuses,” says company founder Voskresensky. “We just successfully launched the customer relationship management software business in 2005 after we reached some excellence in providing these services.”
He adds: “And I haven’t done any programming since 2008.”
“I think he is married to his company (because) he’s involved in all the processes so much,” said Hybrid Capital’s Kenigshtein.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software provides user-friendly instruments for keeping a business’s client base in the right order. This includes managing customer data, vendor and partner relationships, automating sales or even enabling a manager’s email account to track daily business activity. Prices for this kind of product start at $150,000.
Jooble
Typing jooble.ua into a web browser’s navigation bar takes the user to an aggregator that gathers job vacancies on the Ukrainian labor market throughout the web.
“We want to be the Google of job searching,” explains Roman Prokofyev, who launched the service back in 2006. Meanwhile, it was only in 2008 that Jooble made its first profit.
It has already attracted some investments from the Aventures fund, while Dmytro Lysytsky’s newly-created $50 million fund also intends to park some money with the job finder.
Kabanchik
Repairing a refrigerator, ordering a massage or having a dog walked is more convenient when purchasing services online through this website. It provides ratings of specialists for wide range of needs who can be contacted after checking the price they charge for their services.
“Kabanchik is a savior for all women. There I found a master who modernized my old six-chair furniture set and also a guy who fixed my washing machine,” says Nadiya Matukhno, 32, from Kyiv. “All the specialists there usually go through document checks which reduces your suspicions about the possibility of a fraud.”
However, Matukhno also sees flaws. Its default setting yields random service providers, which could lead to choosing the wrong tradesman, while cancelling orders is complicated.
For example, finding someone to install a water boiler after the government installed austerity measures turned out to be close to impossible for Matukhno due to the overwhelming demand on the platform, which Roman Kirigetov launched in 2012.
Stanfy
As mobile applications grow more and more popular, this San-Francisco-registered company founded by Ukrainian programmer Pavlo Bashmakov bets on those who see their smartphones as serious part of life.
Its BeHappy application for sharing photos and mood-describing comments, is downloadable free. Waterbalance, another application that keeps track of a body’s water balance, is also free while enjoying an AppStore rating of 4 out of 5.
But, software doesn’t occupies all of Bashmakov’s thoughts. Stanfy’s Magic Face, a smart watch that resolves dilemmas like “still having doubts about calling her first?” offers random answers that are popular with teenagers, and costs as much as $150.
Kyiv Post associate business editor Ivan Verstyuk can be reached at [email protected].
