WhatsApp, Grammarly, Snapchat, PayPal : Tech Cos Born in Ukraine | TechTree.com

WhatsApp, Grammarly, Snapchat, PayPal : Tech Cos Born in Ukraine

Ukraine has emerged as a hub for technology companies that today occupy a remarkable space world over.

 

Ukraine’s contributions to the tech sector is quite impressive to say the least. The country has a history of jump starting several tech companies like WhatsApp, Grammarly, Snapchat and PayPal. Some have Ukrainian roots, others Ukrainian founders.

Ukraine also has a vast IT sector that outsources services to large corporations around the world.

WhatsApp was founded by Ukraine-born Jan Koum in January 2009. The initial purpose of the app was to show statuses, but then it became popular as an instant message platform, which is why Facebook acquired it in 2014 for $19 billion.

Fintech company PayPal was co-founded by Ukrainian emigrant Max Levchin. It was initially called Confinity in 1998 and X.com in 1999. Max Levchin left PayPal in December 2002, a few months after eBay acquired it.

In 2012, Levchin also founded Affirm, the US-based buy-now pay-later platform. Levchin also produced the movie Thank You for Smoking. He also co-founded companies like social app developer Slide.com and fintech startup studio HVF.

Snap, the parent of Snapchat, was acquired by photography startup Looksery in September 2015 that was co-founded by Ukraine-based Yurii Monastyrshin. The deal that was valued at $150 million was the biggest acquisition in Ukraine's history. It also allowed Snapchat to introduce a masking feature called Lenses that is still used today.

With Looksery on board, Snap has offices in Kyiv as well as Odessa.

Kyiv is also home to app developer MacPaw that claims to have a user base of over 30 million users around the globe. The company is known for CleanMyMac X, a macOS utility app.

Grammarly the handy typing assistant is one of the biggest tech companies to come out of Ukraine. It was founded by Ukraine-born Max Lytvyn, Alex Shevchenko, and Dmytro Lider in 2009 and is globally used by content creators.

Grammarly is headquartered in San Francisco but its primary developer office is in Kyiv.


TAGS: WhatsApp, Snapchat, Grammarly, PayPal

 
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