Ukraine's Startup Ecosystem: A roundtable discussion

Overview:

Ron brings a dynamic blend of operational leadership, global business acumen, and values-driven investing to early-stage venture capital. As Managing Partner and Head of the AV Seed Fund at Alumni Ventures, he leads investments in bold, frontier technologies that span sectors and geographies. Ron’s experience ranges from founding and scaling unicorn-status startups to guiding impact-focused portfolios that generate both financial and societal returns.

Before joining Alumni Ventures in 2019, Ron served on the Investment Committee at Yard Ventures, AV’s fund for the Harvard community. His own entrepreneurial journey includes co-founding and leading TravelPerk, an enterprise travel management platform that reached multibillion-dollar valuation and global scale. Prior to that, he launched the B2B division of Booking.com and held strategic roles at McKinsey & Co., US Airways, the Maersk Group, and Lycos.

Ron studied entrepreneurship at Babson College and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. A frequent speaker at global investor conferences and guest on top VC podcasts, he is also a passionate world traveler—having visited over 140 countries and all 50 U.S. states. He resides near Boston with his wife and three young children, and shares personal reflections and industry insights at ronlevin.substack.com.

Funds Actively Worked On:

• Seed Fund
• Yard Ventures

Investment Areas of Focus:

Ron’s investment strategy is grounded in the belief that moonshot ideas—when coupled with great execution—can generate asymmetric outcomes. He gravitates toward founders solving global-scale problems through advanced technology, with a particular interest in sectors such as:

• Enterprise software
• Fintech and edtech
• Life sciences and healthtech
• Clean energy and sustainability
• Space and advanced computing

He is especially drawn to companies that combine technical rigor with mission-driven ambition—ventures that challenge the status quo and improve lives across the economic spectrum.

His impact-focused philosophy is captured in his book, Higher Purpose Venture Capital, which highlights startups tackling root causes and symptoms of social and wealth inequality. Ron’s notable investments aligned with this “double bottom line” thesis include:

• Aprende Institute, empowering upskilling in underserved communities (edtech)
• Fido, extending digital identity and financial access in emerging markets (fintech)
• HopSkipDrive, transforming student and senior transportation (mobility) Provenance, enabling traceability and transparency in supply chains (cleantech)
• Surge Therapeutics, developing innovative cancer immunotherapies (biotech)

These companies reflect Ron’s broader vision: to support transformational technologies that deliver extraordinary outcomes—for both investors and the world.

Bozhena Kulchyckyj is a Senior Associate at Alumni Ventures on the Seed Investment team, where she supports venture investments across all sectors, with a focus on consumer, e-commerce, and emerging infrastructure themes. Earlier in her career, Bozhena worked at General Catalyst, True Ventures, and Sorenson Ventures, spending time across early-stage investments. She previously co-chaired and served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Boston College’s Shea Center for Entrepreneurship, where she ran the university’s entrepreneurial ecosystem — managing the venture competition and student investment program, leading accelerator and founder programming, and bringing in operators and investors across the broader venture network.

In addition to venture and ecosystem building, Bozhena has led design, operations, and growth initiatives at several early-stage startups. She also spent a year working in Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland, supporting humanitarian aid deployment and philanthropic fundraising efforts.

Bozhena holds a Bachelor of Science from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, where she majored in Information Systems, Business Analytics, and Studio Art. She combines a passion for product and design with a deep interest in AI-driven technologies and the next generation of builders.

Andrey is a pioneer of Ukrainian venture capital and the founder of AVentures Capital, launched in 2001 as Ukraine’s first VC fund. Since then, he has backed 36+ Ukrainian founders building global businesses — including Petcube, Ciklum, Depositphotos, and Bookimed — with 14 exits to date. He also serves as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (UVCA), which he initiated in 2014, and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2008.

Ali is a Senior Analyst on PitchBook’s emerging technology team, with a focus on defense tech, AI, and drones. He joins the panel on the strength of his recent PitchBook report on Ukraine’s defense tech ecosystem — a widely cited analysis of the gap between venture funding, production capacity, and export potential across drones, ground robots, and software, and one of the most substantive investor-facing views on the sector to date.

Deborah Fairlamb is an executive leader with more than 20 years of experience spanning the corporate, entrepreneurial, and public sectors across multiple countries and cultures.
Since 2015, Deborah has focused on venture investing, business development, and innovation in Ukraine, with an emphasis on the technology sector and startup ecosystem. She helped coordinate the launch of two national initiatives for the Government of Ukraine designed to accelerate economic growth and strengthen the country’s innovation ecosystem.
Previously, Deborah led global marketing and business development initiatives for UBS and Merrill Lynch, driving growth in brand awareness, revenue, and client acquisition. Her expertise includes venture investing and due diligence, business strategy, investor relations, leadership, business development, and cross-cultural partnerships.