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18 I Companies & Markets bne May 2021
their move against short-selling hedge funds, CD Projekt is an actual star of Poland’s gaming industry.
CD Projekt – with a capitalisation exceeding PLN30bn – is only one of the listed game developers in Warsaw that have given investors noteworthy returns recently, also prompting new IPOs.
Mobile game developer Huuuge is in the final stages of an offering that could be worth PLN1.7bn, the company said.
A smaller player, Game Island, also said it was preparing a pre-IPO for Warsaw’s alternative market, NewConnect.
CD Projekt’s shares have gained just over 10% in the past 12
Investment in Ukrainian-founded startups reached record high $571mn in 2020
East West Digital News in Moscow
In 2020, the total VC and PE investment volume in Ukrainian or Ukrainian-founded tech companies reached
a record high $571mn. This data is provided by AVentures Capital, a major local VC firm, in its authoritative VC report published last month, reports East-West Digital News (EWDN).
The volume of seed deals more than doubled year-on-year to $42mn. Meanwhile, the volume of Series A deals more than quadrupled to a $119mn, notes the report.
The better part of the funding went to a handful of global companies founded by Ukrainian entrepreneurs – and still relying, at least partly, on Ukrainian technical teams – but established in the USA. These companies are:
• airSlate ($40mn deal announced in 2021 but closed in 2020);
• Creatio ($68mn deal announced in 2021 but closed in 2020);
• GitLab (valued at $6bn in November 2020 as it organized a $195mn secondary sale);
• Restream ($50mn Series A in August 2020).
months, with growth impeded by the unfavourable early reviews of bugs in Cyberpunk 2077, a problem that the com- pany began addressing with a patch released in January and another one in February.
Another gaming company, PlayWay, had its stocks soar 134% since the beginning of 2020. Still another company, Ten Square Games, brought in returns of 111%.
The positive sentiment around gaming companies has liter- ally dozens of them looking at carrying out IPOs in Warsaw. According to Poland’s financial website Bankier.pl, at least 30 gaming companies are planning IPOs on WSE’s main market or the alternative market NewConnect in 2021.
www.bne.eu
Most Ukrainian funds focus on early-stage rounds, while international investors target high growth opportunities at the Series A and further stages.
The reports sees exits as a sign of maturation of a “product- oriented ecosystem:” globally-successful Ukrainian product companies “continue drawing attention from of strategic
“Most companies and sectors, including product startups and IT service companies, returned back to growth in Q3”
players, international buy-out funds, and generate returns for early backers.”
Several startups with Ukrainian roots – Gitlab, Bitfury and Grammarly – are now unicorns, the report points out. A few others are on the track to become new ones: these includes