An App Maker Hangs On Amid War in Ukraine

App maker Readdle sounds like a classic success story from Silicon Valley: In 2007, four young techies get together to pioneer business productivity tools for the first iPhone. Their document managers, scanners, and calendars become bestsellers in roughly 200 countries. This August, more than 33 million downloads later, the company celebrates its seventh profitable year since launching its first app.

Except Readdle is a 50-employee Ukrainian company based in Odessa. That’s where its founders grew up, studied computer science and applied math, and want to remain despite the country’s war with pro-Russian separatists, its struggling economy, and its entrenched bureaucracy. “There is political instability and uncertainty about what’s next, but we’re in a very favorable position both geographically and because most of our customers are global,” says co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Igor Zhadanov.