The Origin
Our Story
Our Story
How it
Began
Green Flag Ventures was born from a shared conviction: that Ukraine is not just a nation under siege, but a frontier of ingenuity, resilience, and unstoppable potential. We saw the headlines. Then we saw the reality. And it changed everything.
Deborah Fairlamb had already been in Ukraine for years, building from within. She served in senior leadership roles at UkraineInvest, the Ukrainian Startup Fund, and TechUkraine, laying the groundwork for a startup ecosystem that could thrive globally. Her work helped Ukraine’s tech sector grow more than 30 percent annually for much of the past decade and remain the only sector to continue expanding in wartime. She saw the rise of a uniquely Ukrainian innovation engine: gritty, science-rooted, and driven by founders who know how to get things done despite the odds.
Justin Zeefe came from another track: co-founding a U.S. threat intelligence firm, Nisos, after a decade in American government, predominantly overseas (plus deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan). In April 2022, a volunteer trip to Ukraine altered his trajectory. Delivering aid, he witnessed a spirit unlike anything he’d seen in other conflict zones - a country not just resisting, but choosing to fight for a future built on self-determination, innovation, and freedom. That experience, and the Ukrainian founders he met along the way, lit a spark.
We named our fund “Green Flag Ventures” as a deliberate inversion. Most investors fixate on red flags. We focus on the green ones: the indicators of opportunity hiding in plain sight. Ukraine is full of them.
We invest in early-stage Ukrainian tech companies with dual-use potential - commercial products with battlefield relevance. Why dual-use? Because when tech is stress-tested in war and still performs, it’s usually ready for anything. And because dual-use companies are uniquely positioned to scale into global security, infrastructure, and public-sector markets.
Ukraine is also the world’s largest open-air lab for AI, autonomy, cybersecurity, communications, and disaster-resilient systems. Founders are building real solutions under real threat. This gives Ukrainian startups a distinct edge - and a strong appeal to Western buyers looking for proven resilience.
The Ukrainian talent base is a structural advantage. Ukraine graduates nearly 50,000 highly qualified tech professionals each year - many with deep STEM backgrounds. Even amid displacement, that talent is active, distributed, and mission-driven. The diaspora continues to contribute from abroad. Those who return bring global experience home. The result: a scalable and renewable innovation engine.
Our edge at Green Flag Ventures is access. Deborah has deep reach inside the ecosystem; she knows where the best founders are before anyone else. Justin brings the national security and commercial muscle: connections to U.S. enterprise buyers, NATO procurement pathways, and national security partners who need what Ukraine is building. Together, we help Ukrainian startups reach markets they otherwise couldn’t.
But we’re more than capital. We help with export controls, IP protection, government contracting, and go-to-market strategy. We open doors. We walk founders through growth plans, exits, and buyer conversations. We syndicate with other U.S. and EU funds to amplify impact and reduce risk.
Our vision is to seed and scale a generation of Ukrainian companies that will dominate their categories - becoming regional leaders, acquisition targets, and, in some cases, the infrastructure layer of tomorrow’s defense and resilience tech stack.
We are not an impact fund - we exist to drive value and returns to our investors - but we are additionally motivated by the return on courage. Ukraine is fighting not only for itself, but for all of Europe. We’re here to help build.
Green Flag Ventures was born from a shared conviction: that Ukraine is not just a nation under siege, but a frontier of ingenuity, resilience, and unstoppable potential. We saw the headlines. Then we saw the reality. And it changed everything.
Deborah Fairlamb had already been in Ukraine for years, building from within. She served in senior leadership roles at UkraineInvest, the Ukrainian Startup Fund, and TechUkraine, laying the groundwork for a startup ecosystem that could thrive globally. Her work helped Ukraine’s tech sector grow more than 30 percent annually for much of the past decade and remain the only sector to continue expanding in wartime. She saw the rise of a uniquely Ukrainian innovation engine: gritty, science-rooted, and driven by founders who know how to get things done despite the odds.
Justin Zeefe came from another track: co-founding a U.S. threat intelligence firm, Nisos, after a decade in American government, predominantly overseas (plus deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan). In April 2022, a volunteer trip to Ukraine altered his trajectory. Delivering aid, he witnessed a spirit unlike anything he’d seen in other conflict zones - a country not just resisting, but choosing to fight for a future built on self-determination, innovation, and freedom. That experience, and the Ukrainian founders he met along the way, lit a spark.
We named our fund “Green Flag Ventures” as a deliberate inversion. Most investors fixate on red flags. We focus on the green ones: the indicators of opportunity hiding in plain sight. Ukraine is full of them.
We invest in early-stage Ukrainian tech companies with dual-use potential - commercial products with battlefield relevance. Why dual-use? Because when tech is stress-tested in war and still performs, it’s usually ready for anything. And because dual-use companies are uniquely positioned to scale into global security, infrastructure, and public-sector markets.
Ukraine is also the world’s largest open-air lab for AI, autonomy, cybersecurity, communications, and disaster-resilient systems. Founders are building real solutions under real threat. This gives Ukrainian startups a distinct edge - and a strong appeal to Western buyers looking for proven resilience.
The Ukrainian talent base is a structural advantage. Ukraine graduates nearly 50,000 highly qualified tech professionals each year - many with deep STEM backgrounds. Even amid displacement, that talent is active, distributed, and mission-driven. The diaspora continues to contribute from abroad. Those who return bring global experience home. The result: a scalable and renewable innovation engine.
Our edge at Green Flag Ventures is access. Deborah has deep reach inside the ecosystem; she knows where the best founders are before anyone else. Justin brings the national security and commercial muscle: connections to U.S. enterprise buyers, NATO procurement pathways, and national security partners who need what Ukraine is building. Together, we help Ukrainian startups reach markets they otherwise couldn’t.
But we’re more than capital. We help with export controls, IP protection, government contracting, and go-to-market strategy. We open doors. We walk founders through growth plans, exits, and buyer conversations. We syndicate with other U.S. and EU funds to amplify impact and reduce risk.
Our vision is to seed and scale a generation of Ukrainian companies that will dominate their categories - becoming regional leaders, acquisition targets, and, in some cases, the infrastructure layer of tomorrow’s defense and resilience tech stack.
We are not an impact fund - we exist to drive value and returns to our investors - but we are additionally motivated by the return on courage. Ukraine is fighting not only for itself, but for all of Europe. We’re here to help build.