In October 2026, during TechCrunch Disrupt week, 13 startups took the stage at Venture Night in San Francisco. Each team had three minutes to pitch and two minutes to answer questions. OBRIY.ai, a technology company, won the Best Ukrainian-Founded Startup award.
Organized by TechEmbassy, Venture Night brings together startups, investors, and technology leaders from around the world, continuing the UAtech initiative's mission of supporting Ukrainian-founded startups as they expand internationally.
Founded in 2025, OBRIY.ai brings together three co-founders with complementary backgrounds: Viacheslav Shestakovskyi (co-founder and CEO), a serial entrepreneur with 16 years of experience and four successful exits; Dmytro Nosach (co-founder and COO), an IT leader with 16 years of experience; and Andrii Bobrov (co-founder and CTO), an expert in cloud infrastructure, AI, and machine learning with over 17 years of experience. Today, OBRIY.ai has grown to a team of 20 employees.
Combining their expertise, the founders saw an opportunity to address a practical business challenge: scaling customer communication and automating complex business processes. Their idea was to use AI not only to generate content or answer questions, but also to interact with customers, access corporate data, and perform actions within internal systems.
This led to SURE, OBRIY.ai's flagship platform for creating AI employees for customer support. Unlike conventional chatbots that primarily answer questions, SURE-based agents can retrieve information from knowledge bases, interact with corporate systems, and perform tasks within existing business workflows.
Initially, SURE was developed for online stores. During YEP Accelerator, the team recognized the product's potential for larger businesses, while participation in Fozzy Venture Studio in 2025 marked an important step into the enterprise segment.
A deployment for a major Ukrainian retailer illustrates how the technology works in practice. The company handles approximately 50,000 customer support tickets per month. Its SURE-based AI agent now resolves around 27% of tickets without human involvement, with an error rate of no more than 1% in automated answers. The solution operates within the retailer's existing helpdesk, allowing support representatives to focus on more complex cases.
Among OBRIY.ai's first clients were TaxBox, Atmosfera, and IDCard. The company has also expanded into GovTech, collaborating with Ukraine's Ministry of Justice on AI-powered public services.
In January 2026, OBRIY.ai secured $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Portugal-based N1 Investment Company and established a long-term strategic partnership with the fund.
Later, in February 2026, OBRIY.ai was selected for grant support under a European Innovation Council (EIC) programme. The implementation of the project began in September.
Through the YEP Accelerator US Track 2026, OBRIY.ai is building connections with American investors, potential customers, and technology partners.
Looking ahead, OBRIY.ai plans to scale its operations and expand its customer base across the US and Europe, helping more companies automate customer support and improve business processes through AI.
OBRIY.ai Wins Best Ukrainian-Founded Startup in San Francisco
In October 2026, during TechCrunch Disrupt week, 13 startups took the stage at Venture Night in San Francisco. Each team had three minutes to pitch and two minutes to answer questions. OBRIY.ai, a technology company, won the Best Ukrainian-Founded Startup award.
Organized by TechEmbassy, Venture Night brings together startups, investors, and technology leaders from around the world, continuing the UAtech initiative's mission of supporting Ukrainian-founded startups as they expand internationally.
Founded in 2025, OBRIY.ai brings together three co-founders with complementary backgrounds: Viacheslav Shestakovskyi (co-founder and CEO), a serial entrepreneur with 16 years of experience and four successful exits; Dmytro Nosach (co-founder and COO), an IT leader with 16 years of experience; and Andrii Bobrov (co-founder and CTO), an expert in cloud infrastructure, AI, and machine learning with over 17 years of experience. Today, OBRIY.ai has grown to a team of 20 employees.
Combining their expertise, the founders saw an opportunity to address a practical business challenge: scaling customer communication and automating complex business processes. Their idea was to use AI not only to generate content or answer questions, but also to interact with customers, access corporate data, and perform actions within internal systems.
This led to SURE, OBRIY.ai's flagship platform for creating AI employees for customer support. Unlike conventional chatbots that primarily answer questions, SURE-based agents can retrieve information from knowledge bases, interact with corporate systems, and perform tasks within existing business workflows.
Initially, SURE was developed for online stores. During YEP Accelerator, the team recognized the product's potential for larger businesses, while participation in Fozzy Venture Studio in 2025 marked an important step into the enterprise segment.
A deployment for a major Ukrainian retailer illustrates how the technology works in practice. The company handles approximately 50,000 customer support tickets per month. Its SURE-based AI agent now resolves around 27% of tickets without human involvement, with an error rate of no more than 1% in automated answers. The solution operates within the retailer's existing helpdesk, allowing support representatives to focus on more complex cases.
Among OBRIY.ai's first clients were TaxBox, Atmosfera, and IDCard. The company has also expanded into GovTech, collaborating with Ukraine's Ministry of Justice on AI-powered public services.
In January 2026, OBRIY.ai secured $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Portugal-based N1 Investment Company and established a long-term strategic partnership with the fund.
Later, in February 2026, OBRIY.ai was selected for grant support under a European Innovation Council (EIC) programme. The implementation of the project began in September.
Through the YEP Accelerator US Track 2026, OBRIY.ai is building connections with American investors, potential customers, and technology partners.
Looking ahead, OBRIY.ai plans to scale its operations and expand its customer base across the US and Europe, helping more companies automate customer support and improve business processes through AI.
