Ukrainian fintech that helps startups with wartime funding raises $1 million

Fuelfinance, a Kyiv-based fintech that develops financial management and planning software for startups, has raised $1 million, mostly from angel investors in the US

The company helps other startups and established companies deal with what founder and CEO Alyona Mysko calls war economy management.

“Wartime economic management is like economic management during any crisis,” Mysko said in an interview. “So you simply predict different risks and try to optimize your expenses, be more efficient, spend less and have a higher runway. And still understand what expenses you should reduce, but you should still grow. You need to understand and have specific budgets for unpredictable situations.” About half of Fuelfinance’s customers are series A or series B startups.

The fundraiser comes at the end of a tough year for fintechs and for everyone in Ukraine since Russia invaded and began bombing the country on February 24, 2022.

The banking system lost more than 20% of its assets and around 30% of its customers due to war

and forced emigration, according to Rostyslav Dyuk, chairman of the Ukrainian Association of FinTech and Innovation Companies.

“Fintech, which built its infrastructure on digital channels, after falling by 70-80% during the first months of the war, recovered to 85% of pre-war levels,” he said. “There are sub-sectors like digital lending that suffered more, but payments and non-banks are doing very well.”

Many Ukrainian startups have shown resilience throughout the conflict. Some have chosen to give products to the military or to companies that help with the war effort. The total combined enterprise value of Ukrainian startups in 2022 was $23.3 billion, only a modest decrease from $27 billion in 2021 and three times the size of the market in 2020, according to a report posted by dealroom.co. Statista expects strong growth for Ukrainian fintechs. The country’s neobanking segment is expected to show revenue growth of 66% in 2024. In the digital payments segment, the number of users is expected to grow to 25.19 million by 2027.

It’s not easy, of course.

When asked if she is safe, Mysko said that it is not possible to be safe where she is, but she and her team strive for normality. They have access to alternative energy and Starlink, the broadband internet service provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, so they operate largely without interruption.

Half the team is in Ukraine. The rest, mostly women, have escaped to other countries.

When air raid sirens go off, the team staff head to a shelter, as they have for the past eleven months. It is set up with tables, laptops and internet access, so everyone gets back to work quickly, she said.

“I think we are very resilient, adaptable and we already know how to deal with it for such a long period of time,” Mysko said.

Among her keys to staying sane and keeping morale up during war: “Just stick to the same schedule, wake up really early, and have this basic routine from day to day and don’t read so much news,” she said. “Be more focused on things you can control and where you can make an impact. And also sharing the big vision and strategy with all our team members, what we’re doing, that we’re hiring Ukrainian employees and trying to focus the team on that, not on bad news, what’s happening.”

The company offers psychology sessions for employees “because we all understand that war is not very easy for everyone,” Mysko said.

For employees who have left the country, the company must still provide remote support. An employee who joined the military forces in March is still there and Fuelfinance is still paying full salary.

In a counterintuitive way, the war has brought employees together, Mysko said. Physically, it has brought more people to the office who previously worked remotely.

“The office is one place where you have electricity, internet and everything,” she said.

But the war has also hardened the determination of the entire team.

“Before, there was motivation around our company and what we want to achieve and how we want to build the new financial management for all companies,” Mysko said. “But now there is an additional mission. And when you have these two strong missions together, helping Ukraine win the war and building the future of economic governance, we have so much motivation now. The only desire we have is to win this war And we all understand that after our victory there will be another country and we will have the greatest future that our country can even have.”