BGV Trident Capital, founded by Illia Ponomarev and Hennadiy Butkevych (the co-owner of ATB), has invested $5 million in the robot manufacturing startup Deus Robots, created by Pavlo Pikulin in 2018.
According to a release of Deus Robots, the attracted investments will be used to organize the serial production of robots for warehouse logistics, as well as to expand the number of developers in Ukraine and the company’s entry into international markets.
It is planned that by the end of 2022 serial production will begin with a volume of about 400 robots per month. These robots will be used to automate logistics processes.
Until now, as noted, Deus Robots has developed with the personal investment of its founders. Thus, Pavlo Pikulin has already invested over $1 million of his own funds in the development of the project. In 2021, Deus Robots produced and delivered 40 robots to customers.
“In any warehouse there are a number of tasks that are solved by people: sorting, order picking and transportation of goods. We develop robotic solutions for these tasks. At the moment we have three robots: for sorting goods and parcels, for transporting racks and for pallet transportation. Next year there will be three new models of robots that will solve other problems, for example, they will be able to pick up goods from shelves and racks,” Pikulin is quoted as saying.
According to him, the robotics market is a promising area for investment. Deus Robots already has orders for the supply of 400+ robots in 2022-2023.
“One of our robots can work approximately 18 hours a day. This exceeds the working day of a loader or warehouse manager, whose working day lasts eight hours. And add weekends, vacations, hospital and other administrative costs associated with hiring people (training, transportation costs and others),” he explained.
The release also notes that the development of robotics in Ukraine is facilitated by partnership with Poshta. DEUS Robots units are already being tested in the supply chain in the processes of sorting and moving goods of Nova Poshta.
Deus Robots, a robotic company engaged in the development, production and sale of high-tech logistics equipment, was founded in Kyiv in 2018. It specializes in the development and production of technologies for autonomous mobile robots (AMR).
The chairman of the board of directors of IMC agricultural holding, Oleksandr Petrov, for the period on December 27-30 bought 99,742 shares of the company at a price of PLN32.28 per share for a total of PLN3.22 million ($793,020 at the rate of the National Bank of Poland), thereby increasing his share in the charter capital of the agricultural holding to 81.21%, according to the website of the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
According to the group of companies, Petrov personally, as well as through his companies Richmarket Investments Ltd and Agrovalley Limited, owns shares in IMC in the amount of 26,945,415.
The IMC share price did not change over the week, remaining at the level of PLN32.3, and since the beginning of the year it has increased 1.7 times.
As reported, in 2020, the agricultural holding increased its net profit 4.3 times compared to 2019 – to $31.71 million, EBITDA – 1.8 times, to $71.84 million, revenue decreased by 5% – to $161.39 million.
IMC in 2020 sold 610,930 tonnes of corn (less by 14% compared to 2019), wheat – 118,060 tonnes (more by 54%), sunflower – 86,830 tonnes (more by 7.1%), soybeans – 1,310 tonnes (reduction by 25 times).
In May 2021, the company decided to pay 3.4 times more dividends for 2020 than in 2019 – EUR20.57 million, or EUR0.62 per share.
The agricultural holding specializes in the cultivation of grains, oilseeds and milk production in Ukraine. It processes about 123,300 hectares of land in Poltava, Chernihiv and Sumy regions. It owns capacities for storing 554,000 tonnes of grain and oilseeds.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) may permit Gorky Agrofirm (Kyiv), part of the agricultural holding Ristone Holdings, to purchase Kosari distillery (the village of Kosari and the town of Smila, Cherkasy region), the right to which the company won at a privatization auction in November for UAH 162.88 million.
The state regulator considered the relevant issue at a meeting on December 30.
According to the website of the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF), the privatized asset consists of 1,360 names of buildings, structures, movable and other property, including an industrial building, a fermentation department, a granary and a distillery, a company store, a pig farm, warehouses, hangars, etc. The facility is equipped with basic technological equipment, as well as the necessary communications.
The enterprise is located on nine land plots with a total area of 75.74 hectares the village of Kosari and the town of Smila.
Ristone Holdings is an agricultural vertically integrated holding.
Ristone Holdings cultivates 65,800 hectares on the territory of Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhia regions. It is engaged in the cultivation of grain and industrial crops, animal husbandry, production and wholesale and retail trade in agricultural products, in particular, flour, bread, bakery products, etc.
Privatization of the alcohol industry involves the sale by the State Property Fund of 41 distilleries of the state-owned enterprise Ukrspyrt and another 37 factories united in the Ukrspyrt concern. In total, it is expected to attract about UAH 2 billion. At the same time, in 2020, the amount of assets sold at 20 auctions amounted to UAH 1.26 billion.
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 31/12/21
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of December 31
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
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Publisher of “Open4Business”, PhD in Economics, Maxim Urakin, and the “Open4Business” team.
