On 18 May, the second cohort of the XFactory Ukraine accelerator officially opened. Five startups took the floor to present themselves — two minutes per project to explain why they belong here. WildFiresUA is one of those five. And five days earlier, on 13 May, we learned the main thing: 40 teams had applied, and the organisers selected five. For the next five months we go through the programme — and we want to share what we are building and who made this opportunity possible.
Who we are and what we build
We build a decision-support system for wildfire response — a tool for emergency services, local authorities and environmental specialists. The core question it answers is «what to do next»: when to warn the public, whom to evacuate, where to direct resources.
The system has three parts:
Detection. The first module identifies fire hotspots from satellite and other open environmental data. The earlier an ignition is detected, the more time there is to react while the fire is still manageable.
Evolution. The second module forecasts how a fire will develop: where the fire front will move and how fast, accounting for weather, terrain and vegetation. It shows what is at risk now and what will be at risk in a few hours.
Emissions. The third module calculates where the smoke and harmful emissions will travel — which settlements will fall under the plume and what the pollution concentration will be. A wildfire harms people not only with flame; smoke reaches tens of kilometres from the source.
Together the three modules give a complete picture: where it burns, where the fire will go, who the smoke will reach. The team is 10 people. The stage is pre-seed. The sector is dual-use and environmental tech. For four years this work rested on the persistence of a small team. Now we have people beside us who know how to turn an engineering project into a sustainable product.
What XFactory Ukraine is
XFactory Ukraine is a corporate accelerator run by the international Forvis Mazars network (100+ countries, 40,000+ professionals). Forvis Mazars has operated in Ukraine since 2008 — eighteen years, more than 100 experts, offices in Kyiv and Lviv. The company stayed here after 2022 as well.
Forvis Mazars takes no equity in the startups and issues no invoice. This is a fully philanthropic project: the company invests the paid time of its partners and experts into other people’s startups because it considers this a fair contribution to rebuilding Ukraine’s economy. The first cohort, in 2025, received about 380 hours of such expert support.
The programme is built on the practices of the XFactory accelerator in France. Each participant in the second cohort receives a personal mentor and access to Forvis Mazars experts across several areas at once: strategy and entering new markets, business models and dual-use technologies, finance and audit, tax and law, HR. Separately, there are group sessions with venture funds, business angels and European startup communities, focused on the French and German markets. The free acceleration for Ukrainian innovative startups is also highlighted by the state platform Diia.Business.
Selection: five out of forty
Forty teams applied for the second cohort — startups from different sectors and at different stages. Five made it into the programme: WildFiresUA, ECOMUR, IMB, Raymetra and STRIX. On 13 May we learned we were in that five. To be among five out of forty is both recognition of our work and a responsibility not to waste five months of access to people whose time is expensive.
A company that has worked in Ukraine for eighteen years invests the time of its most experienced specialists into startups from which it will gain neither equity nor profit. In 2026, that too is a form of resilience.
Who we thank
Diana Sidko, Head of XFactory in Ukraine — for the programme you built from scratch and carried to a second cohort. Grégoire Dattée and the Forvis Mazars team in Ukraine — for the decision to invest the time of your partners and experts into startups you are under no obligation to work with.
The programme mentors — Denys Shendryk, Yevgeniya Kopystyanska, Dmytro Lutset, Yulia Zaprudska, Oleksandr Sviatoboh, Maksym Piankov — for agreeing to answer our questions over the next five months. The jury — Florence Sardas, Leo Schmidt, Yana Hulak, Iryna Voinytska — for trusting an early-stage project.
The programme partners — for holding, alongside Forvis Mazars, the ecosystem in which Ukrainian startups can still grow despite the war.
Who stands behind XFactory Ukraine
- Forvis Mazars (organiser) — an international audit and consulting network that created and runs the accelerator.
- Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine — state support for the programme.
- Ukrainian Startup Fund — the state fund for developing Ukrainian startups.
- IT Ukraine Association — the largest industry association of Ukraine’s IT sector.
- SET University — a Ukrainian university of science, entrepreneurship and technology.
- Diia.City Union — an association of residents of the Diia.City legal regime.
- La French Tech Kyiv — the Kyiv hub of the French Tech community.
- WIN2EDIH — a European Digital Innovation Hub in Ukraine (EU Digital Europe programme).
What’s next
Five months of work lie ahead: strategy, financial model, reaching partners. Wildfires in Ukraine will not become rarer — neither forest fires nor those caused by the war. Our job is to make sure they are detected earlier and their consequences can be predicted. XFactory gives us the tools to do this faster. We will come back with results — when there is something to show.
Links
- About the XFactory Ukraine programme — forvismazars.com
- Forvis Mazars in Ukraine — forvismazars.com
- Diia.Business on the programme — business.diia.gov.ua
- Ukrainian Startup Fund — usf.com.ua