Student startups that came to IdeasLab in the spring with only ideas now have their first customers, sales, thousands of app downloads, and the opportunity to present their projects internationally.
Student startups that came to IdeasLab in the spring with only ideas now have their first customers, sales, thousands of app downloads, and the opportunity to present their projects internationally.
These results were shown by the finalists of IdeasLab 9.0, the leading university startup program for students in Ukraine, according to a study by Forbes Ukraine and Techosystem.
This year’s recruitment was the largest in the entire history of the program: a record 169 applications were submitted from students from various cities and universities in Ukraine.
For 13 weeks, participants worked on their own products, tested business hypotheses, communicated with potential users, created the first versions of solutions, and prepared for the final presentation of projects at Demo Day.
This year’s finalists included startups in healthcare, education, digital wellbeing, pet services, and workflow automation.
One of the most successful projects of this year’s recruitment was the PRM team, which is developing a platform to improve the rehabilitation experience of patients.
During the program, the team held negotiations with seven medical institutions and signed four letters of intent to cooperate.
As a result of the Demo Day, the team received an opportunity to participate in the Race to Revenue program from the University of Notre Dame and present their project to investors in Chicago. In addition, the startup received a grant from Amazon Web Services in the form of cloud services worth $ 25 thousand.
The Flari team is developing an application that helps users monitor their digital device usage and combat excessive screen time.
During the program, the app was downloaded by over 1,500 users. The startup also received a $25,000 grant from Amazon Web Services.
Another finalist was the VerseUp team, which creates an operating platform for foreign language teachers.
The service helps automate some of the administrative work and already has its first paying users. Following the Demo Day, the team also received a $25,000 Amazon Web Services grant.
The winner of IdeasLab 9.0 was the Puppyl team, a platform for finding trusted pet sitters and services for pet owners.
During the development of the project, the team made the first transactions on the platform, and according to the results of the final, received a grant of 150 thousand hryvnias for the further development of the startup.
According to the organizers, the main feature of this year’s recruitment is that many teams have gone beyond the idea stage and have already received the first confirmation of demand for their products.
«A few months ago, most of these teams came to the program with just an idea. Today, they are already working with clients, making their first sales, signing partnerships, and receiving international opportunities to develop their projects,» notes Ivan Petrenko, CEO of Ideas Center UCU.
IdeasLab is implemented by the Ideas Center UCU in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame and with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Catholic University.
