€50 Million Makes French Investors More Visible On The Ukrainian Technology Sector
Prior to the French summit held in Paris, December 2022, the United States had dominated financially for Ukraine until, President Emmanuel Macron pledged a fund for Ukraine's economic resilience and recovery effort for fifty million euros.
Dominique Piotet, head of La French tech in Kyiv, an association of thirty start-ups, welcomes Franco-Ukrainian start-up fund with an initial cash injection of €50 million.
"Whenever a territory is reconquered, reconstruction has to start immediately," said French President Emmanuel Macron.
This €50 million Franco-Ukrainian start-up fund is a vehicle that will make French investors more visible in the Ukrainian venture capital scene, until now dominated by United States investors.
The French President held the “Bilateral Conference for the Resilience and Reconstruction of Ukraine” this December 2022, with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky present via video conference. This initiative aimed to define guarantees for economic resilience as well as to reinforce Ukraine's recovery effort in the short term. With Paris at the main stage for the European summit leaders from fifty countries joined together to stand with Ukraine. It was a semblance to mobilize French economic players on these aims in a colloquy at the conference.
During the full day event, the businessmen began to outline routes in the areas of energy, agriculture, water supply, information technology and health. The French and other countries pledged funds worth €1 billion for the supply of technology, rails, bridges, and seeds to help rebuild Ukraine.
Ukraine's technology sector offers extraordinary investment opportunities, and the country is just a three-hour flight from Paris,” says Dominique Piotet, “But until now, France has not realized this – only a few percentage points of money invested in the technology sector is French, 90% of it comes from the US,” he said.
The fund, called Ukrainian Phoenix Tech Fund, will invest in early-stage technology start-ups from Ukraine. With the support of an accelerator, mentors and partnership with the Ukrainian government, the fund will support the development of these businesses at their early stage supporting them by giving them an opportunity to develop and grow in the global market spaces.
Dominique Piotet, a French American expert on digital transformation. Piotet resided in Ukraine with his family since 2019 as CEO of the largest innovation park built in Kyiv called Unit.City. His 30+ years of experience in advanced digital ecosystems will put him at the forefront of this influential project.
“The Ukrainian tech ecosystem is hyper-resilient, and it operates at more than 90% of its pre-war capacities. Also, for this sector, it is not a question of talking about reconstruction but rather about accelerating construction. And that's good news. Tech already represents more than 5% of the Ukrainian GDP and will reach 15% in the next 4 years.” – says Dominique Piotet.
Dominique has been an active participant since day one of the war on Ukraine from helping deploy humanitarian aid to global initiatives for the reconstruction of the country with the 3D printing project to build schools and homes for displaced families called HIT (Humanitarian Innovative Technology). His leadership skills and experience in the technological revolution will allow HIT to rebuild the country in record time and provide schools and or homes to the millions of refugees.
As almost all Ukrainian industries transferred knowledge and resources to aid the war effort, HIT entered the game unselfishly, bringing its experience and relationships to the fight the enemy “behind the lines”. HIT is, at its core, an international team of passionate humanitarians and successful veteran technology entrepreneurs pivoted the focus from their other high paying positions to help the struggle the Ukrainian people are facing.
HIT has been providing humanitarian aid to the country since the first day the conflict broke out, supporting 100,000 refugees and is now bringing 3D printing technology to start the recovery effort even before the war has ended.
Dominique Piotet says: “We are built on humanity and compassion. We are driven by cutting-edge technology and its high impact on the future of people and the world.” He goes on to say, “We are here for impact and global scale with high potential for growth and investment appeal, and we aim above the mark to ACHIEVE the target.”
The first 3D printing school - HIT has in practice a first project of 3D printing technologies in construction in Ukraine, in essence, it covers the three poles of the flag: innovation, speed, and accessibility. This innovative technology will bring a focus on socially sustainable spaces, leading to engineering solutions in construction and modern planning. The first of its kind 3D-printed school will house a modern space for children, considering all their needs to create in the best conditions and provide 100 children with the ability to learn while fleeing war.
