The international venture fund TA Ventures is interested in investing in Web3 cryptocurrencies, as well as in fintech projects, including neobanks, said the founder of the fund, Victoria Tigipko, in an interview with the Business Breakfast project organized by Forbes in Kyiv.
“Investing in so-called crypto projects, Web3 projects – yes, I am interested in this. We are looking at projects that are related. These are platform solutions, these are projects that can be used globally,” she said, while noting that TA Ventures is already an investor in MoonPay, a fintech company specializing in cryptocurrency payment solutions, and Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange.
“We are interested in such projects on this scale,” Tigipko assured.
According to her, TA Ventures is also interested in fintech projects and has already invested in the neobank project of Dmytro Dubilet, one of the founders of Ukrainian monobank, Nick Bezkrovny, former head of M&A at KPMG, and Oleksandr Vityaz, a provider of cloud operating systems at Corezoid, called Fintech Farm.
“Why neobanks? In our understanding, the world of fintech is moving towards One-Stop-Shop (a “one-stop shop” is a business or service model that offers a full range of products or services to meet different customer needs in one place or on one platform)… That is why we focus on such products,” emphasized Tigipko.
According to her, Fintech Farm operates in Vietnam and Egypt. Launches in India, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are planned in the near future.
The founder of TA Ventures said that she will soon join the board of the global organization Endeavor, founded in 1997 by Linda Rottenberg and Peter Kellner. One of Endeavor’s goals is to transform emerging markets by finding and developing entrepreneurial talent.
“I will soon become an Endeavor board member. As a board member, I am investing in the Ukrainian Endeavor… For me, it is like paying tribute to the development of the Ukrainian startup business ecosystem,” she said.
TA Ventures International Fund was founded by Victoria Tigipko in 2010. It focuses on such technology sectors as mobility, digital healthcare, fintech, industrial technology, enterprise software, real estate technology, logistics, financial services, and IoT. The fund invests in early-stage technology startups focused on sectors such as HealthTech, FinTech, B2B Software and mobility solutions. The average investment amount is from $100 thousand to $500 thousand at the Pre-Seed and Seed stages.
Ms. Tigipko is also the founder of iClub, a private investment club for angel investors that provides its members with the opportunity to invest in promising startups and participate in major technology conferences.
The board of Polish Getin Holding and Serhiy Tigipko’s TAS Group signed a purchase and sale agreement for Idea Bank on Friday, with the base amount of the deal amounting to $34 million, according to a press release from the group on Friday and a stock exchange announcement from the holding.
According to the statement, the buyer of 100% of the shares is Alkemi Limited (Cyprus), a member of the TAS group, and the transaction is subject to the approval of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine and the National Bank of Ukraine, and is governed by English law and the requirements of the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
Idea Bank Ukraine operates in the retail banking segment and focuses on servicing individuals. The bank’s main products are cash loans, credit cards, deposits, current accounts and debit cards. As of August 1, 2024, total assets of Idea Bank amounted to UAH 11.72 billion, ranking it 27th among 62 Ukrainian banks. Its equity capital as of that date amounted to UAH 1.74 billion, and net profit for the first seven months of this year was UAH 417.3 million.
TAS Group is one of the largest financial and industrial groups in Ukraine, which is represented in banking, insurance, railcar building, metallurgy, packaging materials, logistics, agriculture, food industry and real estate.
The group owns Universal Bank and TAScombank with assets of UAH 134.34 billion and UAH 36.62 billion, respectively, ranking 9th and 16th in the market by this indicator. The agreement stipulates that if the closing date is later than December 31, 2024, Alkemi Limited will pay Getin Holding an additional $0.8 million for each full calendar month starting from January 2025.
Idea Bank (formerly Plus Bank) was founded in 1989. In June 2020, the deal to sell Idea Bank to Ivan Svitek, former CEO of Alfa-Bank (Kyiv), and Ukrainian investment company Dragon Capital was terminated: the parties failed to agree on its commercial terms within the timeframe set by the agreement. Later, Dragon Capital and Svitek managed to buy Unex Bank from Vadym Novynskyi’s Smart Holding before the war.
In late February 2022, Getin Holding announced that it had failed to sell Idea Bank for the second time. The agreement on the terms of sale of its 100% stake to Rinat Akhmetov’s First Ukrainian International Bank (FUIB, Kyiv), signed on November 10, 2021, was terminated due to the failure to meet all the conditions for the transfer of ownership by February 25. Following the termination of the agreement with FUIB, Getin Holding abandoned its plans to sell its Ukrainian subsidiary amid Russia’s ongoing military aggression against Ukraine.
On March 27, 2023, the National Bank of Ukraine recognized the business reputation of both the Polish holding and its main owner, Czarnecki, as impeccable. In this regard, the Ukrainian regulator temporarily deprived Getin Holding of the right to vote on 100% of Idea Bank’s shares and set a one-year deadline for the holding and its main owner Leszek Czarnecki to eliminate the violation, and a year later refused to return the voting rights to the holding. In addition, the NBU approved Jacek Piechota, President of the Polish-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce, as a trustee of Idea Bank.
In Poland, as a result of the decisions of the Bank Guarantee Fund, the Polish Idea Bank became part of Pekao Bank, while Getin Noble Bank was also put into rehabilitation, changed its name to VeloBank and was sold to the American fund Cerberus Capital Management LP at the end of March this year.
At the end of April this year, the NBU gave Getin Holding six months to sell its 100% stake in the authorized capital of Idea Bank. In addition, a similar demand was made of Mr. Charnetsky, who was required by the NBU to sell 44.98% of Idea Bank to Getin Holding within six months, offering as an alternative to sell Charnetsky’s stake in Getin Holding or LC Corp BV, which belongs to him, to LC Corp BV, which owns 34.17% of Getin Holding.
Carriage-building enterprise Dneprovagonmash JSC (DVM) plans to sell up to 100 railcars for export to Europe, businessman Serhiy Tihipko said.
“Today we produce 80 railcars per month for the domestic market, but we have already started to make and for export… The European market is 8-9 thousand railcars per year, we have set a goal of 100 railcars per month to sell there. In money, the average car is about EUR100 thousand,” he said during the forum ‘Money for Victory’ organized by Forbes Ukraine.
According to him, Austrian metallurgical company voestalpine provides lighter and stronger metal for construction of railcars, which is a competitive advantage in the European market.
In turn, the group will invest in the modernization of the plant (metal work, welding, painting) and staff training.
As reported, in early 2023, TAS Group became a strategic investor in TransAnt GmbH, a wagon-building JV of Austrian voestalpine and ÖBB Rail Cargo, with a 40% stake, and in spring 2024 became a majority shareholder of TransAnt, increasing its stake to 61%.
In October 2023, as part of an innovative project with Austrian partners, Dneprovagonmash, a member of the TAS group, shipped the first lightweight modular freight cars (MultiBOX) for operation on EU railroads, and by the end of the year it already had a full line of platform freight cars for the EU market.
According to information in TAS Dneprovagonmash’s financial statement for 2023, this year it plans to invest UAH 100.2 million in the development of the European direction, in particular for the purchase of equipment.
The company in 2023 produced 378 freight cars (including for the EU market), which is 34.8% less than in 2022, sales decreased by 40.6% to 370 units.
Net income from sales of railcars and other products decreased by 2.8% to UAH 1 bln 77 mln, net profit increased insignificantly to UAH 49.2 mln.
TAS Group was founded in 1998 by businessman Tigipko. Its business interests cover the financial sector (banking and insurance segments) and pharmacy sector, as well as industry, real estate, and venture projects.
Carriage-building enterprise Dneprovagonmash JSC (DVM) plans to sell up to 100 railcars for export to Europe, businessman Serhiy Tihipko said.
“Today we produce 80 railcars per month for the domestic market, but we have already started to make and for export… The European market is 8-9 thousand railcars per year, we have set a goal of 100 railcars per month to sell there. In money, the average car is about EUR100 thousand,” he said during the forum ‘Money for Victory’ organized by Forbes Ukraine.
According to him, Austrian metallurgical company voestalpine provides lighter and stronger metal for construction of railcars, which is a competitive advantage in the European market.
In turn, the group will invest in the modernization of the plant (metal work, welding, painting) and staff training.
As reported, in early 2023, TAS Group became a strategic investor in TransAnt GmbH, a wagon-building JV of Austrian voestalpine and ÖBB Rail Cargo, with a 40% stake, and in spring 2024 became a majority shareholder of TransAnt, increasing its stake to 61%.
In October 2023, as part of an innovative project with Austrian partners, Dneprovagonmash, a member of the TAS group, shipped the first lightweight modular freight cars (MultiBOX) for operation on EU railroads, and by the end of the year it already had a full line of platform freight cars for the EU market.
According to information in TAS Dneprovagonmash’s financial statement for 2023, this year it plans to invest UAH 100.2 million in the development of the European direction, in particular for the purchase of equipment.
The company in 2023 produced 378 freight cars (including for the EU market), which is 34.8% less than in 2022, sales decreased by 40.6% to 370 units.
Net income from sales of railcars and other products decreased by 2.8% to UAH 1 bln 77 mln, net profit increased insignificantly to UAH 49.2 mln.
TAS Group was founded in 1998 by businessman Tigipko. Its business interests cover the financial sector (banking and insurance segments) and pharmacy sector, as well as industry, real estate, and venture projects.
The founder of mobile izibank Anna Tihipko-Baikovska has joined the supervisory board of Dniprovagonmash (DVM, Kamenskoye, Dnipropetrovsk Region), which is controlled by her father, businessman Serhiy Tihipko, a financial and industrial group TAS.
According to the publication of the company in the information disclosure system of the National Commission on Securities and Stock Market (NSCM), the relevant information from the shareholder T.A.S. OVERSEAS INVESTMENT LIMITED (owns 99.9988% of share capital) on the replacement of his representative in the Supervisory Board from December 16 DVM received on Thursday.
According to the shareholder’s report, this terminated the authority of Sergei Mandra, who had been a member of the DVM JSC’s supervisory board since April 2013.
According to DVM, Tigipko-Baykovska currently holds the position of director of business development at izibank and deputy director for control of strategic assets at TAS Asset Management LLC, previously she was an advisor at TAScombank JSC. She does not own any shares of DVM JSC.
“Dneprovagonmash is one of Ukraine’s leading companies in the design and manufacture of freight cars.
In January-September 2022, it earned UAH 6.15 mln in net profit compared to a UAH 97.7 mln loss for the same period in 2021, and its net income increased 2.2 times, to UAH 849.86 mln.
The board of directors of DVM has four members and has been chaired by Serhiy Tihipko since 2005.
izibank is a fintech project created jointly with the TAS Group and launched in beta mode in the fall of 2020.
TAS Group was founded in 1998. Its business interests cover the financial sector (banking and insurance segments), industry, real estate, and venture projects.
War and the decline of the domestic market force the Ukrainian business to pay maximum attention to expanding exports and entering foreign markets, TAS Group founder Serhiy Tihipko said.
“Now we are starting to create a project as a monobank in Poland – it is a unique product,” he said at the Kiev International Economic Forum (KIEF) in Kiev on Thursday.
Tigipko recalled that currently monobank has 6.5 million customers and a significant part of them abroad.
The businessman said that before the war he did not pay enough attention to the development of export opportunities. “Those businesses that I had focused on the domestic market are a problem,” he described the current situation.
At the same time, Tigipko said that in war conditions it is possible to increase exports, in particular, the group’s wagon building companies have signed two contracts for Europe, one – a startup for the construction of innovative cars.
According to him, apple concentrate, metalware and nails have good prospects.
The businessman also noted the importance of diversification. “We have both industrial and financial (sectors), and agriculture – diversification has worked. I believed in it and I believe in it now,” he stressed.
Tihipko also complained that before the war, he did not pay enough attention to the reserves in case of crises. According to him, if there were more of them, now he could make more profitable deals, but he already bought 49% in one of the companies from one of the partners, and before that he bought a share from another partner because “people are rushing around”.
TAS Group was founded in 1998. The sphere of its business interests covers the financial sector (banking and insurance segments), industry, real estate, venture projects.
