36,000 to 180,000 businesses. That's the estimated number registered by Ukrainian entrepreneurs in Europe since February 2022. It's an estimate — because no European country keeps public statistics on businesses started by refugees. Germany knows how many Ukrainians receive Bürgergeld. Poland knows how many work on an umowa. But how many of them opened a Sp. z o.o. or a GmbH — that's a blind spot in the data. I found this out while doing my own research. I did it because I wanted to understand: who exactly is what I'm building actually for.
What I'm building — and why it's connected to Ukrainian entrepreneurs.
I work with non-repayable resources. Not just grants — that's a common misconception. A grant is one of 42 resource categories I track. The other 41 include cloud credits, ad budgets, concessional loans, mentorship from corporations, no-equity accelerators, pro bono legal consulting, free office space, visa support, public recognition that converts into clients. All of this exists. Most entrepreneurs know nothing about it.
I manually built a database of {{sources_count}} funding sources and {{active_programs_count}} active programs. I'm now building an AI agent that will do what I do — but for thousands of entrepreneurs at once, not twenty a year.
Ukrainian entrepreneurs in Europe are my first and most intuitive segment. Moldova, Romanian citizenship, business in Sri Lanka, Italian residency, a life spanning multiple jurisdictions. I know what it’s like to navigate a foreign grant system when you are technically a local business—yet operate in an information vacuum.
The paradox that infuriates me.
A Ukrainian entrepreneur who registered a GmbH in Germany formally has the same rights to access German small-business support programs as a German citizen. BAFA, KfW, state funds, sector-specific programs — all of it is legally accessible. But accessible doesn't mean obtained. Because the system doesn't explain itself in Ukrainian or Russian. Because the criteria are written so that without understanding the bureaucratic language of that specific jurisdiction, you can't even tell if you qualify. Because deadlines pass while you're still figuring out who to talk to.
Most entrepreneurs I've seen in this situation do one of three things: they pick from whatever narrow set of options they already happen to know about; or they don't look at all (running on their own money or investment); or they search chaotically — burning hours on sites with "grants for startups," filling out forms without understanding the eligibility criteria. And they start thinking the problem is them, or the funds. It isn't them. It's information asymmetry.
What's actually available — if you know where to look.
I did something practical. I ran a filter on my database: out of {{active_programs_count}} active programs, how many are available to a Ukrainian entrepreneur with a company in Europe, with no EU citizenship requirement and no mandatory founder relocation?
Below is an interactive block. Select the resource types you're interested in — you'll see how many programs of each type are currently active for this profile. This list is updated and growing regularly.