The eighth startup selection by USF was held on July 3rd at the territory of the Unit.City innovation park. Ten projects at the seed stage (the stage at which the company has already entered the market, attracting clients and investments — Ed.) competed for grant funding from the state (equivalent to $50 thousand).

A startup could receive financial support from the state by scoring 15 or more points from the jury in total. Based on the results of Pitch Day, three such projects emerged.

Neverdark (19.33 points) — a project engaged in manufacturing and selling fireplaces with real fire for rooms without a chimney. Neverdark offers automatic bio-fireplaces with remote control, running on biofuel. The grant winner will direct the state funding primarily to expenses related to entering other countries' markets: in the coming years the company plans to reach a turnover of $4 million per year. Currently the average client check is $4 thousand.

Revizion (16.71 points) — a feedback and review service founded by a young entrepreneur from Zhytomyr. The service allows management and business owners to receive feedback from clients, analyze it, handle objections and win back customers. The Revizion team includes ex-Kyivstar head Petro Chernyshov, and Revizion's services are already used by many well-known chains, services and stores, including — Puzata Khata, Nova Poshta, Intertop and many others. The state money Revizion plans to spend on business scaling.

UPSWOT (16.67) — a service for increasing sales efficiency aimed at SMB, with continuous monitoring and insights from 117 alternative data sources. UPSWOT sees banks as its priority client and the US market as its priority market. In the near future UPSWOT as a tool will become available to several thousand banking institutions worldwide. The state money the service plans to spend on business development.

Just short of state funding were the platform for creating complex virtual assistants Activechat (14.29 points) and the pre-ordering service for food in restaurants and cafes Timeat (13 points).

Funds will be transferred to the winning startups after the relevant decision of the USF Supervisory Board.

Note that, according to data from AIN, grant recipients from the state will pay a total of 19.5% tax, and the amount equivalent to $50 thousand is provided in hryvnias at the exchange rate at the time of application submission by the startup.

The Ukrainian Startup Fund is a state entity. It began accepting applications for funding Ukrainian business projects in December 2019. The process of selecting startups for grants takes place on a competitive basis: companies are evaluated and selected by a board of independent investment experts. The volume of the Ukrainian startup financing program is declared at 440 million UAH.

We remind you that in June the Ukrainian Startup Fund launched a grant acceleration program. Applications for accreditation and subsequent acceleration will be accepted until July 10. After the accreditation of accelerators is completed, the Fund will begin selecting startups for participation in the relevant program.