Designing games and interactive stories with Canva. How Ukrainian startup Maval works

In our recurring Who Are These People segment, Vector offers founders an opportunity to discuss their projects, covering aspects such as their products, marketing strategies, monetisation, investments, and plans. The focus this time is on Maval, a Ukrainian startup that empowers users to build interactive narratives, games, visual novels, and learning simulations. 

Maval’s team are participants in the YEP! accelerator programme. The Vector editorial board is the official information partner of the programme.

Vector’s editor-in-chief Yuliia Tkach interviewed Heorhii Yablochkin, Maval’s co-founder, about the product’s features, promotion, investments, and plans.

Conception

Maval has three co-founders.

• Heorhii Yablochkin. He brings over 7 years of experience in business development, product management, and team building. His portfolio includes the launch of over 10 B2B and B2C projects in creative industries, EdTech, outsourcing, and hardware design. Between 2019 and 2024, he led Helpich, a service company focused on building teams and establishing operational procedures for international clients such as exchanges and large corporations. In 2020–2022, he was a co-founder of Adaptech, a hardware studio delivering end-to-end products.
• Roman Vorobei. His professional background includes over 7 years in product management, hardware projects, and data analytics. His career includes roles as a Product Manager at EOS Data Analytics, co-founder of Adaptech, service in the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, and his current position as a scout for Defence Builder. At Maval, his responsibilities encompass the creative engine structure, product vision, and development synchronisation.
• Pavlo is a business development and international trade professional with 7+ years of experience. He has been an advisor at the Department for Business and Trade at the British Embassy in Ukraine since 2019. Before this, he managed the product segment at Byzantium Agency and was a partner in Helpich and Adaptech. His focus at Maval is on forging strategic partnerships and navigating the company’s entry into worldwide markets.

The co-founders launched the company in 2024, building on their prior joint project experience. The team’s journey included over 10 failed projects and a few successful ones. 

One instance was the visual novel Noir Police, which involved a manual creation process, bringing together a variety of tools from Midjourney to Unity. This was a period of war, loss, and exhaustion. The demo version reached completion, revealing a crucial insight:  the project would not succeed. It was the end of one journey but the dawn of another — this was when the Maval concept came to life. Could it be that if an unknown studio’s game lacks appeal, people would instead be keen on developing their own interactive stories? And so Maval emerged — a no-code engine for interactive content development», — Heorhii explains. He continues:

«Creating games on the platform is 4x faster and 5x cheaper than using traditional development methods. Maval aims to onboard 20,000 users in the first year following the launch of its SaaS version. The core aim is industry transformation, because only 5% of new animated IPs are presently adapted into games.

There are five members on the Maval team. Apart from the founders,

• the team includes Sean Delouch, an American producer, screenwriter, and creative director with experience in comics and TV series, who serves as a direct link to Hollywood.
• The engine’s technical architect is Sasha Kotov, previously a Senior Developer at Ubisoft, now based in London working at Grafana.

Product and audience

Maval is a visual platform for building interactive narratives, games, visual novels, and educational simulations. Creators can bring in scenes, characters, music, branching choices, voiceovers, and animation, to literally create a playable story from scratch. LikeCanva or Figma, the process includes ready-made templates and AI assistance.

The service is aimed at multiple user segments: independent creators, scriptwriters, small studios, educators, and even firms with prominent IPs. A pilot project is now underway with a Canadian studio that holds rights to global franchises.

Upon entering the YEP! accelerator, Maval only had a prototype and some initial concepts, yet was missing a distinct structure, market insight, a monetization strategy, and a defined target audience. The team publicly introduced the product for the first time during this period, then proceeded to build the business. Specifically, the team carried out numerous interviews with prospective clients, established TAM/SAM/SOM, examined competitors, honed its positioning, and created the product’s strategic roadmap.

Business model and marketing strategy

Maval’s monetization has three streams: 

• Firstly, SaaS: offering end-to-end game development for major clients. Pricing begins at $70,000, plus sales royalties. In this case, the Maval team handles the complete cycle — from script to publication. 
• Secondly, a SaaS product targeting authors, studios, and screenwriters will offer subscriptions ranging from $20–50 monthly, based on functionality. 
• Thirdly, EdTech, meaning special conditions for educators: complimentary access for teachers and students, or a paid annual licence for educational institutions starting at $500.

In 2025, the Maval team launched the product and displayed its initial public prototype as part of Ukraine’s official delegation at The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam.

Following the product’s public debut, the Maval team onboarded its initial user group. Concurrently, the startup garnered numerous applications for early access. Maval is currently in discussions with several key partners who are exploring the platform’s potential for in-house interactive content development.

Analysing the market, the team’s operations are guided by these figures:

• TAM: exceeding $7 billion, derived by encompassing the global market for tools used in game creation, EdTech content, and interactive storytelling (source: Statista, Global Games Market Report, internal analysis);
• SAM: estimated at approximately $900 million. This segment narrows the focus to studios, educational platforms, and creators who are already using low-code/no-code solutions;
• SOM: for the initial SaaS launch phase, the team projects this segment to be between $8 and $12 million. This estimate considers the subscription potential from studios, educational institutions, and individual creators over the first 18 months».

The complete rollout of Maval’s SaaS version is planned for 2026, set to offer AI features, shared project workspaces, and game export options for multiple platforms. «Designed with broad appeal, this solution targets both industry professionals and anyone keen on crafting their own interactive stories — authors, independent developers, and educators. Users can leverage the platform to create narrative games with animation, voiceovers, and gameplay, all without code».

Investments

The team has personally financed the project’s development, investing about $30,000 into its MVP without relying on external investment or grant capital. 

While open to grants and strategic alliances, the team’s focus is securing investors who align with their development vision. 

Plans

«Within the next twelve months, Maval aims to launch an educational platform, introduce a team-oriented editor, incorporate voice AI agents, and provide a direct publishing function for games created within Maval. 

Maval’s roadmap includes a SaaS product launch in 2026, targeting 100,000 users by 2027, with global engine distributionplanned for 2028. Our goal is for Maval to serve interactive stories as Canva serves design: providing an accessible and robust tool for anyone», — summarised Heorhii Yablochkin.