SAN FRANCISCO — The out-staffing software development company Ciklum with headquarters in Denmark and seven offices in Ukraine employing more than 2,400 people will soon launch a startup-in-residence program. The company's CEO and founder Torben Majgaard announced the plan at the UTGem conference in San Francisco on Sept. 18.
“We’re going to be offering Ukrainian startups to move into our offices. We’re trying to create in Ciklum a big massive incubator, where we can help Ukrainian companies,” Majgaard said in an interview with the Kyiv Post.
The Ciklum CEO further explained that the company can take care of many things for startups, including getting visas to different countries, as well as provide its office space in San Francisco, New York, London and Copenhagen for work and business meetings.
Majgaard, who is also an angel investor who provides capital for business startups, added that the startups in residence will have to give up “a little bit of equity,” becoming “a part of a 2,500 people machine, which means confidence from customers will be a lot bigger.” He also promises to be personally consulting the entrepreneurs and provide introductions to potential partners and customers.
Earlier this year, Majgaard participated in early-stage investment rounds for Ukrainian startups Coppertino and Augmented Pixels. The former is developing a popular free media player VOX for Mac OS and a music cloud platform, while the latter creates augmented reality-based products.
Andrii Degeler is the Kyiv Post’s information technology reporting fellow. Degeler has been covering the IT business in Ukraine and internationally since 2009. His fellowship is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe. He can be reached on Twitter (@shlema) or [email protected].
