YEP Accelerator and UMAEF’s u.ventures Invest $25k in Wild.Codes Startup

The winner of the YEP Accelerator Demo Day, Wild.Codes, a marketplace of proven AI remote developers for tech startups that need smart and quick solutions to scale their teams, has received $25k in non-equity investment.

During three accelerator months, the startup, mentors, and the YEP team have worked intensively on customer validation, marketing strategy, funnel building, unit economics, etc. With the support of YEP, the team got acquainted with 40+ venture capital funds from Ukraine, Europe, and the United States, held 15 individual meetings with investors, and worked out their best fundraising strategy.

“Thanks to the YEP Acceleration, we have built the entire fundraising path from zero to a deal. Now, we understand how to organize our work to make our pitch deck and business model attractive to investors. We plan to spend the $25k we won on hypothesis testing, marketing, and attracting new customers in the US market,” says Serhii Lavrinchuk, co-founder and CEO of Wild.Codes.

Graduates of previous YEP accelerator cohorts have attracted more than $2M in investments and generated more than $1.5M in total ARR over the past year. YEP can significantly accelerate the development of pre-seed startups by providing each batch with more than 200 hours of work with mentors in cust-dev, marketing, financial model building, fundraising, and pitching, as well as 150+ hours of meetings with Ukrainian and European investors.

Moreover, thanks to the accelerator’s partnerships with the Ukrainian Startup Fund, specifically with Techosystem, Microsoft for Startups, Genesis, and Cisco, resident startups were able to receive additional perks and discounts of up to $50k on cloud infrastructure, sales automation, lead generation, and analytics services.

The YEP acceleration is implemented with the support of Ukraine-Moldova American Enterprise Fund, which assists the initiatives to promote reforms in Ukraine and transformational projects.

Anton Waschuk, UMAEF Director for Innovation, Education, and Entrepreneurship, noted: “UMAEF is pleased to support the Ukrainian tech ecosystem. We see incredible opportunities in Ukrainian entrepreneurs and innovations that meet global needs and challenges. In particular, thanks to the YEP acceleration, entrepreneurs can get access to globally renowned mentors and investors and compete for a cash prize at the Demo Day.”

A jury of investors selected the winner of this Demo Day from nine funds: Ukraine-Moldova American Enterprise Fund, SMOK Ventures, ZAS Ventures, SID Venture Partners, Angel One Fund, Vesna Capital, Geek Ventures, SMRK Ventures, and Flyer One Ventures.

The accelerator managed to bring together the best Ukrainian funds at one event precisely due to the support of the Techosystem association, whose Board was joined by YEP CEO and founder Andrii Zaikin.

He believes that joint efforts of active Ukrainian ecosystem players within the Techosystem Venture Investment Committee will help develop a strategy and action plan to increase the number of new Ukrainian startups. One of the results of this work is the active involvement of Ukrainian VC funds in the YEP Demo Day and the potential for investment in startups after acceleration.

In the future, YEP is going to increase investment checks and attract even more foreign mentors and investors to help Ukrainian startups enter the international market and receive funding. In September, the accelerator team plans a new call for startups for the program’s next cohort.

Besides, as Anton Waschuk noted, if you are a pre-seed startup with an experienced team and good traction with existing or potential customers, you can get investment.