IFC confirms EUR5 mln investment in Flyer One Ventures Fund V at URC2025

 The International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group announced a EUR5 million equity investment in the first venture fund in Ukraine specializing in financing early-stage startups, Flyer One Ventures Fund V, at the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC2025) in Rome on Thursday.

This investment will be made simultaneously with an equity investment from the EBRD in the amount of EUR6.5 million. The IFC investment includes $3 million (approximately EUR2.57 million) provided by Japan under the IFC's Economic Resilience Action program for Ukraine (ERA), the IFC press release said following the conference.

The corporation also explained that the fund would invest primarily in Ukrainian startups at early stages of development in areas such as enterprise software, EdTech, FinTech and consumer technologies. The main investment of IFC is aimed at accelerating the development of the Ukrainian venture capital ecosystem, helping to retain highly qualified employees and attracting additional private capital to the national sector of new technologies.

Flyer One Ventures (F1V), according to information on its website, is an investment fund specializing in financing startups at early stages of development. The founder and general partner of F1V is Vitaliy Laptenok, who is also a co-founder of the IT company Genesis. The partner and co-founder is Oleksiy Yermolenko, who previously worked at KPMG and Deloitte, and the partner is Olena Mazhuha, who has experience of work at TA Ventures, Citibank, EY and 1+1 Media Group.

It is noted that F1V has already invested almost $43 million in 87 startups, including Liki24, Fintech Farm, VOCHI, and Mate Academy.