Lviv Tech Angels launches new regional investment community

Traditionally, Lviv has been better known for its IT outsourcing and software development industry than tech start-up investment. Lviv Tech Angels wants to change that.

The group currently has about 10 members. Michael Puzrakov (pictured above, left), the COO, chairman and co-founder of the Ukrainian custom software development company Intellias, is a founding member of the new regional investment community.

“There is a fairly large tech community in Lviv that consists of companies doing custom software development, but not producing, developing or selling their own products,” he points out.

In what is considered a high-risk activity, angel investors use their own money to fund early-stage tech start-ups. Along with their financing, angel investors provide much-needed expertise and networking connections for entrepreneurs.

According to the AVentures 2019 DealBook of Ukraine, angel investors provided only about three per cent, or 900,000 US dollars, in early-stage funding for Ukrainian tech start-ups in 2018. The majority (88 per cent) of early-stage financing came from foreign venture funds.

Puzrakov says that tech start-ups from throughout Ukraine will be considered for funding based on the individual preferences of the group’s members. Funding could be in the range of 10,000-100,000 US dollars, but no set pool of money has been allocated so far.

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This article was first published in full at Ukraine Digital News (UADN). You can listen to an interview with Michael Puzrakov here.