One of Ukraine’s largest grain market operators, Nibulon, has reduced its staff threefold, retained four areas of operation, focused on the introduction of new digital services and technologies, and plans to return to its pre-war share of 10% of Ukraine’s grain exports by increasing exports this year to 4 million tons from 2.5 million tons last year, said the company’s owner and CEO Andriy Vadatursky.
“Before the war, the company employed 6,000 people. When I was waiting (for the core team to move from Mykolaiv to Kyiv – IF-U), there were 4,000 employees. Now there are a little less than 2,000. This is the path to optimization and automation of numbers. When people ask, ‘What has changed for you?’, I answer that everything has changed – the entire business model has changed,” he said at the Forbes Agro 2025 conference in Kyiv on Friday.
Vadatursky noted that Nibulon currently has four main business areas: agricultural production, logistics, trading, and digitalization.
According to him, Nibulon is developing agricultural production on slightly more than 50,000 hectares, while before the war, the agricultural holding operated on 82,000 hectares. Its lost agricultural land is located in the Luhansk and Kharkiv regions. In addition, before the war, the grain trader owned 28 elevators, 5 of which have been lost and 13 blocked. Nibulon’s logistics company currently operates 167 motor vehicles and 200 grain cars.
According to the company’s owner, the agricultural holding currently grows approximately 300,000 tons of grain on its own. However, in 2024, Nibulon was able to export 2.5 million tons of grain, and in 2025, it plans to supply up to 4 million tons to foreign markets.
“It is no secret that Nibulon entered the war with $530 million in loans. Currently, we have confirmed losses of $440 million, which, in addition to the loss of land and elevators, include the loss of about 140,000 tons of grain,” Vadatursky said, adding that in three years of war, the agricultural holding was able to earn $250 million and repay $160 million in debts to banks.
He assured that Nibulon intends to continue servicing its loans in 2025, despite the fact that 68% of its assets are currently not operational.
Vadatursky explained that during the war, Nibulon will focus on the efficiency of its businesses, their expansion, and vertical integration. At the same time, the main criteria will be efficiency and “streamlining by removing all inefficient components.” In addition, the grain trader will focus on the introduction of new technologies, digitalization, and artificial intelligence.
“We are targeting approximately $60-80 million in EBITDA to be able to repay all loans. To this end, we are doing everything we can to increase the amount of grain that passes through our system. And we have the ambition to return to our pre-war share of exports, which was about 10-12% of Ukraine’s total grain exports, by providing more competitive services than before the war and earning money through the introduction of technologies and increased efficiency,” the owner of the agricultural holding concluded.
Before the war, Nibulon cultivated 82,000 hectares of land in 12 regions of Ukraine and exported agricultural products to more than 70 countries around the world. In 2021, the grain trader exported a record 5.64 million tons of agricultural products and supplied record volumes to foreign markets in August (0.7 million tons), in the fourth quarter (1.88 million tons), and in the second half of the year (3.71 million tons).
After the war began, the company was forced to move its headquarters from Mykolaiv to Kyiv.
Digitalization is becoming a key driver of private medicine development in Ukraine, with online appointment, electronic medical histories, telemedicine consultations and automatic reminders forming a “new culture of care”, Oxford Medical claims.
“Today’s patient wants to get a consultation quickly and conveniently. Online appointment in two clicks, test results in an app, personalized treatment plans – this is the standard without which private medicine no longer exists,” said Angelina Moroz, medical director of the Kiev branch.
The company also introduces personalized support: administrators and managers act as guides for patients, and doctors remain involved at all stages – from diagnosis to postoperative follow-up.
Oxford Medical – a network of clinics, founded in 2005, covers dozens of cities in Ukraine. Hundreds of specialists work in the staff. The company relies on digitalization, telemedicine and integration with the NHS, developing standards of quality service and focusing on the needs of patients.
On January 1, the Law “On Agricultural Notes” came into force in Ukraine, which provides for the establishment of a separate Register of Agricultural Notes.
It is expected that the register will contain information on the issuance, content and change of details of agrarian notes, termination and encumbrance of agrarian notes, and the commencement of enforcement of obligations under agrarian notes on the basis of a special extract from the register.
The Registry, in turn, will ensure transparency, efficiency and convenience of operations with agricultural notes by automating the processes of forming the details of agricultural notes, making changes, issuing and terminating them. Automated work will simplify the interaction between agricultural producers, creditors, and investors.
In addition, the digitalization of processes in the Registry will reduce transaction costs associated with the issuance and termination of agricultural notes, making the instrument cheap and easy to use.
Oleksiy Yudin, Chairman of the Board of the National Depository of Ukraine (NDU), previously expressed confidence that the project would be an important step in building the digital infrastructure of the agricultural sector, help attract additional investment and ensure sustainable economic growth.
“This project is an important step for the digitalization of the capital market and the agricultural sector in Ukraine. The development of the Agricultural Notes Register will not only help strengthen our country’s position in the global agricultural market, but also create new opportunities for investors,” said Ruslan Magomedov, Chairman of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission.
The NSSM added that this decision is an important infrastructure element and a central component of the entire ecosystem of agricultural notes, without which the full implementation of the new instrument in the market is impossible.
As reported, in October 2024, the International Finance Corporation (IFC, a member of the World Bank Group) and the National Depository of Ukraine signed a grant agreement under which NDU will receive up to $300 thousand to create and implement an innovative Register of Agricultural Notes.
In 2024-2028, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) will allocate 58.7 million francs for the digitalization and development of Ukrainian regions, including the digitalization of healthcare, education, humanitarian demining, and electronic notary.
According to Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister for Innovation, Education, Science and Technology and Minister of Digital Transformation, this is stipulated in a memorandum signed on Wednesday.
“I met with Felix Baumann, Ambassador of Switzerland to Ukraine. The main result of the meeting is the signing of a memorandum for 58.7 million francs ($68.1 million) with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC),” Fedorov wrote in a telegram.
According to him, the funds will be allocated during 2024-2028 and will be used for the digitalization and development of Ukrainian regions, with projects implemented under the EGAP program implemented by the Eastern Europe Foundation. “We are focusing on the digitalization of healthcare services, electronic notary, education, humanitarian demining, and we continue to restart the State Statistics Service. Part of the funds will be used to support the frontline regions, and it is important to ensure access to public services in every community,” Fedorov listed the areas of use of the funds.
Fedorov recalled that with the support of the Swiss government, in 2024 alone, they launched an online marriage and a pilot of the Mriya project for 40 schools, and began testing Diia for civil servants. “We held another international Diia.Summit in Zurich, strengthening the international brand of digital Ukraine. It was there that we signed a memorandum on the opening of the Govtech center together with the World Economic Forum,” said Fedorov.
In general, Switzerland has been supporting digitalization since 2015 through the EGAP program, with partners allocating more than 30 million francs.
ProZorro.Sale JSC became a finalist for the IAM Asset Management Excellence Awards 2023 and was named one of the world’s six best projects working with the digitalization of asset management, it was announced during the annual official award ceremony held by The Institute of Asset Management (IAM) in London on December 4.
As noted in the release of the state-owned company on Tuesday, the finalist organizations demonstrated the application of the best principles and approaches in asset management, adapted to digitalization trends, and their projects were a response to business and consumer requests.
The IAM is an international non-profit organization that has been bringing together asset management professionals since 1994. The Institute recognizes projects and innovative achievements in asset management in the face of modern challenges. The IAM Asset Management Excellence Awards annually honor projects around the world that innovate in asset management in the face of modern challenges.
It is specified that Prozorro.Sale JSC, which administers the state electronic trading system, which hosts online auctions for the sale of public assets, reached the final in the Digital Innovation category. In the final in this category, ProZorro.Sale competed with projects and companies from Spain and the United Kingdom. The winner in this category was a project to improve the efficiency of asset management by Transport Scotland.
“More than seven years ago, with the launch of public online auctions in the Prozorro.Sale electronic trading system, the state began to change the approaches and principles of public asset management. During this time, transparent and open e-auctions have become an effective tool for the state and communities, which have already brought more than UAH 80 billion to the budgets of various levels, and opened up opportunities for businesses to obtain resources for development, including during martial law,” commented First Vice Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.
According to her, the inclusion of the Ukrainian IT solution – the state electronic trading system Prozorro.Sales – in the world’s best in the Digital Innovation category of the prestigious IAM Asset Management Excellence Awards is evidence that it is impossible to achieve results in asset management without digitalization.
“Being among the top 6 best projects in the world is a great responsibility for us, for the entire ProZorro.Sale ecosystem, which includes both ProZorro.Sale JSC and platforms, organizers and bidders. Amid the war, we are more than ever determined to continue working on improving the system and increasing the efficiency and transparency of asset sales in even more markets,” said Serhii But, CEO of ProZorro.Sale.
The company reminded that in 2022, the state electronic trading system ProZorro.Sale was recognized as the best public service by the most prestigious UN Public Service Awards. The administrator of the system, Prozorro.Sale JSC, guarantees the security of electronic auctions, the impossibility of interference in their course and equal access of each participant to participate in the auction, the release emphasizes.
Yadro Systems was established in Ukraine in 2021 and united specialists in IT industry, artificial intelligence, laboratory management and pathomorphologists to create unique software – medical information system for pathomorphological and molecular genetic laboratories.
Yaroslav Nedashkovsky, one of the creators of the system, notes that the SlidePath program is unparalleled and was developed taking into account all the peculiarities of the pathomorphological laboratory:
“The synergy of our team’s knowledge and experience helped create a really cool product. In close collaboration with the largest Ukrainian pathomorphological laboratory – CSD LAB, we developed SlidePath software that covers all the needs of small, medium and even large pathomorphological laboratories.
Quality control is an extremely important process in every laboratory, and thanks to our program, we are able to track each specimen at different stages of examination and ensure clear compliance with the technological process. Barcoding, synchronization with the laboratory equipment, protocols of conclusions – all this allows the laboratory to significantly improve not only the quality of its work, but also the speed of research.
We saw quite a great perspective in the creation of this program, because not only in Ukraine, but in the world in general, there is a need for significant automation of pathomorphological laboratories. And since our colleagues from CSD LAB have a great competence in this area, from the very beginning we tried to make software that would be suitable for different types of laboratories of different scale and scope of work”.
The IT assistant for pathomorphology laboratories created by Yadro Systems specialists has several modules that can be customized to meet the specific needs of the laboratory. The key functions of the software include: creation of an electronic database of results, the ability to print test result forms, notification of patients about the readiness of results, and quality control of studies, starting from the stage of labeling biomaterials samples to delivery of results.
Among the main advantages of SlidePath connection, Yaroslav Nedashkovsky singles out a user-friendly interface, which allows for easy mastering and quick implementation of the laboratory information system.
“This year we are launching this product in Ukraine and worldwide,” adds Yadro Systems director, “So if you are a pathomorphologist, or a small or medium-sized laboratory, you can contact us today and we will provide digilization of your workflow, because SlidePath is software developed together with pathomorphologists and a clear understanding of their needs to improve their work convenience.
CSD LAB, DIGITALIZATION, LABORATORY DIAGNOSTICS, SLIDEPATH, YADRO SYSTEMS, YAROSLAV NEDASHKOVSKY
