How the UNIT.City ecosystem helps startups

For the last 10-20 years, unicorn startups have not been created in garages with the investment of friends or relatives. Today, the right ecosystem and investment through accelerators, business incubators and educational programs are important for the rapid start of projects. AIN.UA together with the UNIT.City innovation park talks in detail about the important elements of the project that will help the startup grow and become a large company.

Accelerators/business incubators/educational programs

Such foreign and Ukrainian programs are an important part of the startup world. It’s through them that participants receive knowledge from experts, the experience of mentors, contacts and funding. Potentially, the acceleration program helps to refine the idea, run it and, avoiding many mistakes, start faster. There are currently several such programs in UNIT.City:

• acceleration hub Sector X;
• accelerator for telecom startups RadarTech;
• accelerator for agro-startups AgroHUB;
• company with design and hardware development Concepter;
• accelerator for industrial facilities Indax;
• investment company for early startups WeFound;
• business school for entrepreneurs and their teams Unit School of business.

Network

UNIT.City is a “city within a city” of the creative industry, where up to 400 thematic conferences take place annually. At one of the last events — the summit for small and medium-sized businesses — there were about a thousand participants and dozens of companies and thousands of residents in one place. It’s here that you can meet the founders of other startups and launch joint projects or find potential investors or mentors to help develop the company.

In 2020, there was a coronavirus in the world and the opportunity to travel to various events became limited, so the opportunity to find new contacts and connections in one place became even more relevant.

Recruitment

The UNIT.City innovation park offers a rather atypical for Ukrainian society process of selection of employees and team members. Yes, there is its own IT school ucode, where students are trained according to an advanced Western curriculum. Park residents have early access to the student base and the opportunity to invite them to work. UNIT.City also has other, narrower areas of study, such as the School of Cybersecurity and Data Science, and DTEK Academy and the Unit School of Business, where it’s possible to find a team of people up to level C.

Investments and partnerships

An important part of any business development is growth and scaling. This often requires investments, which UNIT.City offers its residents in several ways at once:

• partnerships with other startups for product development;
• partnerships with large Ukrainian and international companies;
• bringing local and international investors to the location on demo days;
• thematic activities, which are aimed at gathering in one place those who are willing to invest.

More information on how a whole technology cluster is created on the basis of UNIT.City and why and how it’s possible and important for startups to become a part of it — read via the link.