UNIT.City is launching the Entrepreneur-In-Residence mentoring program in partnership with EIR Europe, with the support of u.ventures, the Western NIS Enterprise Fund. The goal is to create high standards of entrepreneurship culture in Ukraine. The task is to set the right direction for the development of Ukrainian startups and avoid typical mistakes, utilizing international partners’ experience. Mentors are people who are experienced in conducting and successfully selling businesses worldwide. They will be immersed in the Ukrainian startup ecosystem for a month and work closely with companies in the format of personal sessions, public consultations, training.
Both sides will benefit from the EIR program. Startups will get the necessary expertise helping them build business processes more efficiently, understand how to get into new markets and how to create a product that people will buy. Mentors will see lots of startups on their radar screen and will be able to invest in projects in the future and join the board of these companies. The program will last for six months.
“The Ukrainian startup ecosystem is very young. We have virtually no entrepreneurs with success stories going through a full cycle ‒ from an idea to the exit of a project ‒ who could be mentors of people without relevant experience,” says Max Yakover, CEO and Managing Partner of UNIT.City. “That’s why the market needs such a program. EIR in Ukraine will help startups gain knowledge of the development and successful management of a company, as well as the sale and launch of an IPO. Globally, we hope that our program will give impetus to a new movement in the Ukrainian innovation economy.”
Edmundas ‘Eddy’ Balcikonis will be the first mentor of the EIR program. He is a co-founder of the Lithuanian-Belarusian startup TrackDuck, which was sold to the U.S.-based InVision, part of the Atlassian group, in May 2017.
Balcikonis plans to get acquainted with interesting projects and learn more about the rapidly growing startup ecosystem of Ukraine. According to Eddy, Kyiv has the potential to become one of the main European technology hubs. “Ukraine has a huge amount of talent with excellent engineering skills. Plus, Ukrainians are entrepreneurs by nature,” Balcikonis said.
Participation in the program is free.
UNIT.City is Ukraine’s first innovation park. It is the location where all-inclusive ecosystem and infrastructure enable high technology and creative businesses to happen and flourish. The mission of UNIT.City is to become an innovation hub and an entry point for investors, partners and new technologies from around the world; a unique platform where advanced companies, startups, individual specialists, and research laboratories get an opportunity to cross paths and work together ramping up their growth and honing quality. UNIT.City offers its residents a package of services: meetings with investors, consulting, access to accelerating and mentoring programs, prototyping laboratories, well-established infrastructure for work and life.
