From eco to AI: Meet top 10 startups from Ukraine

Headway, a Ukrainian Edtech startup, has become successful and popular in recent years thanks to its book summary app. Founded by Ukrainian Anton Pavlovskyi, this app includes over 1,500 nonfiction titles and allows users with busy schedules to improve their skills and lifestyles by reading or listening to 15-minute recaps of self-development books.

Since 2019, Headway has expanded from a 3-person team into a company of more than 170 people and gained 30+ million users from over 140 countries. Headway has an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 on multiple app stores and is often included in the lists of best ed-tech apps, like the Top Free Education in AppStore and Google Play and the Global Silicon Valley (GSV) EdTech 150 list. Since the Russian invasion, the company initiated Essence of Ukraine, a curated collection of summaries of 32 books by famous Ukrainians, to promote their country worldwide.

Another EdTech startup, Preply, is a multimedia language-learning platform that connects private tutors and students. Founded in 2012 by three Ukrainian entrepreneurs, Kirill Bigai, Dmytro Voloshyn, and Serge Lukyanov, the online learning website has accumulated over 35,000 tutors who teach over 50 languages to learners from 180 countries worldwide. Over the last decade, the company has grown to 500 employees, with offices in Barcelona, Boston, and Kyiv.

Thanks to its unique machine-learning algorithm for best matches of students and teachers, the platform became a global marketplace valued at around $52 billion in 2022. Since the Russian invasion, the company has supported the safety and welfare of its employees based in Ukraine. It has also secured $120 million of investment to develop, among other things, the Reply AI assistant.

One of Ukraine's unicorn startups, Grammarly, has been a leader in text editing software development since it was founded by Ukrainian programmers Alex Shevchenko, Max Lytvyn, and Dmytro Lider in 2009. The company provides cloud-based typing assistant services, helping users check spelling, grammar, and punctuation and improve their writing style in English texts.

In 2021, Grammarly joined the decacorn club, which includes companies worth over $10 billion. By increasing its value to $13 billion, the business ranked 10th on the most valuable US startups list. In 2022, Grammarly withdrew itself from the Russian and Belarusian markets and donated the revenue it earned in those countries to support Ukraine. The company's team recently raised $400 million to develop an AI writing assistant.

Depositphotos is a content website and company which connects creators and buyers. After just three years of operation, it became one of the fastest-growing photobanks in the world. Even though Dmytro Sergeev founded the company in 2009 as a photo stock, it later grew into a royalty-free content marketplace with 200 million files of five different types, including images, videos, and audio.

The marketplace, valued at around $85 million, stopped activities in Russia and Belarus in 2022 in response to the invasion. Bird In Flight, a Ukrainian online photography magazine Depositphotos launched in 2014, has documented and reported on Russian war crimes against Ukraine's environment, culture, and civilians.

RefaceAI is a Kyiv-based product company that develops AI tools for content creation. It became internationally known in 2020 thanks to its deepfake video app, Reface, which allows users to swap faces in photos, videos, and GIFs. Based on AI generative adversarial networks, known as GAN, the app has reached the top in the AppStore and Google Store in the US and 17 other countries ahead of TikTok and Netflix.

After the 2020 success, the company attracted $5.5 million in investment and became popular among celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Britney Spears. Since then, the team has developed other AI-based apps, like Revive, a face photo animator app that makes still images alive, and Restyle, a headshot generator.

Respeecher is another AI-driven tech company from Ukraine. Founded in 2018 in Kyiv, the startup has developed voice replication technology and software to morph one voice into another. It gained success and recognition after it worked with Hollywood studios to replicate the voices of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader for the Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and they managed to do it during the war. Since then, Respeecher has secured $1.5 million in funding from ten investors and has grown 2.5 times.

Respeecher also created a social project to support the preservation of the Crimean Tatar language, which is indigenous to the Crimean peninsula and recognized by UNESCO as critically endangered. Developers collect the voices of the Crimean Tatar people to protect the language threatened by the Russian occupation of Crimea, the persecution of native speakers, and the war.

Ukrainian developers Alex Neskin, Andrii Klen, and Yaroslav Azhniuk launched their company Petcube with love and respect for pets in mind. In 2012, they came up with the idea to create an interactive camera to help pet parents care for their dearest alone at home. Using their smartphones, they can monitor, entertain, and distract their pets from unwanted behavior. According to Petcube, the camera collects and analyzes data so that later, it can understand how a pet feels.

Since its launch, the company has developed a snack dispenser, a GPS tracker, and three types of cameras for different needs. In the future, Petcube wants to create an ecosystem of smart devices, products, and apps that can be customized according to a pet's unique traits. The business is also involved in charities supporting animal shelters and animal rights activists. Since the Russian invasion, Petcube has donated proceeds from pet cameras to rebuild Ukraine.

Esper Bionics is a Ukrainian engineering company that develops prosthetic control technologies for people with limb differences. Founded in 2019, the startup gained recognition for its flagship product, Esper Hand, a self-learning robotic prosthetic limb powered by machine learning and data analytics. The bionic device has 24 sensors that detect muscle and brain activity and predict the user's intended movement. Thanks to its unique algorithms, it becomes more intuitive and improves the user's control over time. In 2022, TIME magazine included the innovation in its best inventions list.

Since Russia's full-scale war, Esper Bionics has supported Ukrainian war veterans by providing prosthetic limbs and aiding their rehabilitation through its Esper for Ukraine program. In 2024, the company received a $150,000 grant from USAID to create more jobs and develop its production in Kyiv. The business is working to expand its product line and build leg prostheses and exoskeletons.

Rubryka has followed and reported on the journey of Releaf Paper from its days as a small environmental initiative to its present as a full-fledged and successful sustainability company with offices in Ukraine and France. Founded by Valentyn Frechka, the startup developed its proprietary technology to produce paper from fallen leaves, often disposed of as green waste in urban areas by burning. Sustainable Releaf paper and packaging production needs 15 times less water and is three times more energy efficient than traditional papermaking.

In 2022, the award-winning company received a €2.5 million grant from the EIC Accelerator program and a €4 million investment from the European Commission. Despite war challenges, ReLeaf Paper has successfully expanded internationally and partnered with global giants such as L'Oréal and Samsung to produce eco-friendly packaging.

CheckEye is a healthcare tech startup that has developed an AI-driven, cloud-based solution for diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening and the detection of other eye conditions in collaboration with the Ukrainian Diabetes Federation and the Filatov Institute for Eye Diseases. The company was founded in 2021 to address a gap in Ukraine's diabetes diagnostics, which even worsened during the war, and make screenings more accessible to patients.

Non-medical staff can use the CheckEye platform to conduct DR screenings by uploading photos of a patient's retina. The AI program analyzes the images for signs of diabetic retinopathy and other disorders with an accuracy rate of 92-93%. The system allows the early detection and timely treatment of diabetes, which is highly prevalent in Ukraine. Since the invasion, CheckEye has offered free mass eye screenings for people in war-affected regions.