Sebastian and Stefan were invited to moderate a workshop on early-stage investments in Ukraine at 👉 „Innovationen für den Wiederaufbau der Ukraine“ (Innovations for Reconstructing Ukraine). The event was hosted by 👉 Plattform Wiederaufbau Ukraine (Plattform for reconstruction of Ukraine), initiated by 👉 Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

During the workshop, a number of (anonymized) startup case-studies were discussed. Workshop participants tried to figure out, what specific risks and chances the war offers to different business models already today. Key findings included the following:

• The situation comes with a high pressure to innovate many areas and pragmatic prototyping becomes a necessity (e.g. defence, public services, education, infrastructure);
• Learnings of resilience and agility might become an unfair advantage in the long run, even in peaceful markets;
• Impact & infrastructure startups will most likely have good chances to raise significant public funding and investment from the international donor community;
• Some teams need to go global quickly, because their home market is slow/ ceased to exist - others have the potential of becoming market leaders in UA as they serve an immediate need, but lack potential to become leaders in global markets.

We would like to thank Marius and his team for the opportunity to deliver this workshop!