Founder of UFuture Investment Group Vasyl Khmelnytsky has appointed Frenchman Dominique Piotet to be Director General of UNIT.City innovation park, reads a press announcement from the company. Following the report, Khmelnytsky will inform about the plans for the development of the innovation park and changes in its management structure together with UNIT.City managing partners, Maksym Yakover and Maksym Bakhmatov, along with new CEO Dominique Piotet.
As reported, UFuture plans within 2019 to increase the investments into various businesses by 20%, up to $60 million.
UNIT.City was officially opened in April 2017 in the territory of the former Kyiv Motorcycle Plant. The co-working space Chasopys-UNIT, the IT school UNIT Factory, three laboratories, a business campus, a foundation and five accelerators are located in its territory.
DIRECTOR GENERAL, DOMINIQUE PIOTET, UFUTURE, UNIT.CITY, VASYL KHMELNYTSKY
DTEK Energy Holding has announced the start of transformation of its corporate university into an innovative educational business platform, Academy DTEK, and on February 21 presented a training platform in UNIT.City, where it occupied two floors of a new six-storey campus, the total rental area of which is 12,000 square meters. “Academy DTEK is becoming an innovative educational business platform open to business representatives, the public sector, the public, and international partners,” Oleksandr Kucherenko, the Director for Sustainable Development at DTEK, said at a press conference during the presentation.
He clarified that the corporate university was created nine years ago, and in 2014 began entering foreign markets. According to him, it currently works with 17 government organizations, including the National Bank, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, the Ministry of Infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry, Ukrposhta, for which 72 training events were held last year.
Kucherenko noted that in the new quality Academy DTEK will introduce in Ukraine international HR practices together with its partners: the business schools and organizations INSEAD, IE Business School, Thunderbird, HRCI, Kyiv-Mohyla Business School.
UDP of businessman Vasyl Khmelnytsky in partnership with KAN Development on Wednesday took part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the third campus – a new six-story B12 business center with a gross area of 16,900 square meters – in the UNIT.City innovation park (Kyiv). “We have already invested $50 million [in the construction of UNIT.City] and in the next year and a half we want to invest the same amount… It will be a mini-city: a school, a kindergarten, many offices and innovative companies, R & D centers, institutions, co-working space, laboratories,” Khmelnytsky, who is the founder of the UFuture investment group, said at a press briefing on Thursday.
According to UNIT.City Managing Partner Maxim Bakhmatov, thanks to the launch of the new campus, the total area of the business part of the park has doubled and now amounts to almost 30,000 square meters. In particular, the total area of the facility is 16,900 square meters, and the lettable area is 12,000 square meters. From the point of view of the residents of the new business center, the focus was made on large corporations – the lion’s share of the facility was leased to Metinvest Digital and the DTEK Academy. In general, about 1,000 people will work in the campus. The facility infrastructure also includes the UNIT.Verse conference space on the ground floor designed for 400 people for hosting big events.
According to the founder of KAN Development, Ihor Nikonov, the campus was built in accordance with the U.S. LEED green building rating system. The completion of the certification procedure is expected to be in 2019. In general, it is planned that 300,000 square meters of commercial space will be built in the innovation park, which will be two thirds of the total area of UNIT.City. According to him, in a month KAN Development will start building a residential part of UNIT.City.
“In 2019, we will build two more new campuses – a seven-story building and a six-story building. Thus, we will do this year 9% of what we plan as a whole,” CEO and Managing Partner of UNIT.City Max Yakover said.
In addition, according to him, in the summer it is planned to open the central square of the city – Event Plaza, which will become the geographical and event center of the innovation park.
“This will be the central square of the park – an ancient Greek forum with an area of 5,000 square meters. It will allow us to accept urban formats. These could be exhibitions, fairs, concerts,” Yakover added.
UDP and KAN Development are co-investors and co-developers of the new campus of UNIT.City.
UNIT.City Innovation Park officially opened in April 2017 on the territory of the former Kyiv Motorcycle Plant. On its territory there are co-working space Chasopys-UNIT, the IT-school UNIT Factory, three laboratories, a business campus, a foundation and five accelerators.
The supervisory board of PrJSC Kyiv Motorcycle Plant (Kyiv) of businessman Vasyl Khmelnytsky has agreed on signing a surety agreement for Alfa-Bank’s (Ukraine) opening a credit line for Unit Holdings LLC (Kyiv) to finance the construction of UNIT.City. According to a report in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, the decision to consent to the transaction was made during an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting on November 30, 2018.
In particular, the matter concerns the intention of Unit Holdings LLC to raise a five-year non-renewable credit line in the amount of $8 million with an interest rate not exceeding 12% per annum from Alfa-Bank. The guarantor in the transaction will be PrJSC Kyiv Motorcycle Plant.
The press service of UDP company told Interfax-Ukraine the money raised will be used to complete the reconstruction of two new campuses of the first stage of UNIT.City.
As reported, Kyiv City Council at the end of September 2018 decided to lease two land plots with a total area of 22.2 hectares at 8 Simyi Khokhlovykh Street to Unit Zhytloinvest and Unit Holdings for the construction of a housing and office complex.
According to UNIT.City’s website, as of November 2018 two business campuses and the co-working space Chasopys.UNIT with 85 resident companies were operating in the innovation park.
It is planned in 2019 to expand the park with three more business campuses, increasing the number of tenants to 150 companies. It is planned that by 2025 the total area of UNIT.City will be 500,000 square meters.
Earlier it was reported, with reference to UDP CEO Vitaliy Melnyk, that UDP and KAN Development are engaged in the joint development of the construction of a six-storey business center in the territory of UNIT.City. Its total area will be about 13,000 square meters.
UNIT.City Innovation Park was officially opened in April 2017 in the territory of the former Kyiv Motorcycle Plant. The co-working space Chasopys-UNIT, the IT school UNIT Factory, three laboratories, a business campus, a foundation and five accelerators are located in its territory.
The Snapchat social network has placed its office and the R&D division in the UNIT.City innovative park in Kyiv, Managing Partner and CEO of UNIT.City Maksym Yakover has written on his Facebook page. “Snapchat has become a resident of UNIT.City. Almost a year of work for a large team to make it happen. We have an office and an R&D division, which, by the way, is actively expanding now,” he said.
Yakover said that Snapchat is one of the most innovative companies in the world.
Snapchat is a mobile photo messaging and multimedia sharing application which capitalization is $8 billion and which has 186 million active users a day. The application was released in September 2011 by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown.
In 2015, Snapchat bought a Ukrainian startup (Odesa) for $150 million.
As reported, businessman Vasyl Khmelnytsky intends to expand the area of the UNIT.City innovative park in Kyiv from 19 hectares to 26 hectares.
The managing partners of UNIT.City are Maksym Bakhmatov and Maksym Yakover (the CEO of the park).
Yakover is also a co-owner of the Chasopys creative co-working space at 3 Lva Tolstoho Street in Kyiv.
The European Business Association (EBA) in September got 15 new members, including Ukrlandfarming, one of the largest agricultural holdings in terms of land bank, the UNIT.City innovative park, Biopharma pharmaceutical plant LLC and ADD (Apteka Dobroho Dnia) pharmacy chain.
According to the EBA, among its new members are also Aakon Grain Ukraine LLC with an elevator of 10,000 tonnes, providing agricultural machinery leasing services, Brovary Aluminum Plant from ALUMETA Group, and Art Nation of movie maker Eduard Akhramovych, working in the sphere of marketing.
Its new members also became Audit Consult Group LLC, the creators of premises for entrepreneurs Business Interiors LLC, a real estate company from Benish Group GmbH, Edwin Steel Corporation LLC and Goodgrainoil, selling grain and oilseeds.
According to the release, in addition, EBA members became Perenio, whose parent company Perenio IoT has its headquarters in the Czech Republic, Rent-a-car Ukraine LLC, an official representative of Europcar in Ukraine, and Skyrora UA, a subsidiary of British-based Skyrora Limited of Volodymyr Levykin.
The EBA told Interfax-Ukraine the total number of the association members reached 979 companies.
