Kyiv, September 4, 2019. – The first innovation park, UNIT.City, starts the second phase of its development which includes its integration into the global innovation ecosystem. To complete this ambitious task, the company is changing its managing structure and introducing a new position of CEO which will be occupied by renowned Silicon Valley innovation expert, Dominique Piotet. He has over 20 years of experience in digital transformation, including work in Fortune Global 500 companies.
“UNIT.City is entering the next level. I’d like more international companies to open their offices here and hire Ukrainian programmers who have proven themselves to be highly-qualified specialists. To make this real as soon as possible, we’ve invited Dominique Piotet, a person with experience in Silicon Valley, to become CEO of the innovation park. Thanks to Dominique’s experience and his knowledge, UNIT.City has every chance of breaking into the innovative system of the world. I am grateful to Bakhmatov and Yakover for their contribution to the development of the innovation park that has turned an ambitious startup into a unique project of the international level,” Vasyl Khmelnytsky, Founder of UFuture, said.
“I’d like to thank Vasyl Khmelnytsky for the invitation and Max Yakover and Maxim Bakhmatov, who have met me with support and who shared their experience from the very first day. I am delighted to see what they’ve managed to build over the years. In Silicon Valley, where I worked for many years, Ukraine is well known for its great developers who work in such companies as Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber. When I first heard about UNIT.City, I realized that I should definitely get acquainted with this project to see where such talented IT-specialists come from,” Dominique Piotet, CEO of UNIT.City emphasized.
UNIT.City’s managing partners Max Yakover and Maxim Bakhmatov are leaving the project as it was planned due to the end of the three-year contract. The company is grateful for their contribution to the development of the innovation park at the first and most responsible stage of its establishment. Within three years, UNIT.City has launched an IT-school for gifted youth, UNIT Factory, built five business campuses, co-working space Chasopys.UNIT, a free gym, and several cafes. In the next seven years, the park is expected to attract about 15,000 new residents and create 10 R&D laboratories.
“In three years, we’ve created not just a brand, but a phenomenon. Today UNIT.City is already a household name. We’ve managed to succeed thanks to Vasyl Khmelnytsky, who risked to invest money, a huge team working on the project, and the residents of the park. Particularly, we are grateful to the very first residents who believed in us, because nothing like this existed in the country then,” Max Yakover, Managing Partner of the innovation park, said.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
UFuture is a Ukrainian private equity firm and group of companies, based in Kyiv. UFuture consolidates UDP, which is a real estate development company specialized in large infrastructure projects, the country’s second biggest Kyiv Sikorsky international airport, national Ukrainian outdoor advertising operator RTM, and Bila Tserkva industrial park. The group develops new and innovative businesses such as renewable energy generator UDP Renewables, pharmaceutical producer Biopharma, and innovation parks UNIT.City and LvivTech.City. UFuture supports and coordinates numerous impact and sustainability projects related to education and economics, some of which are annual Kyiv International Economic Forum, Small and Medium Entrepreneurship School, cutting-edge IT coding school UNIT Factory and Lean Institute Ukraine.
UNIT.City is Ukraine’s first innovation park. It is the location where matchless infrastructure and all-inclusive ecosystem enable high technology, innovative and creative businesses to happen and flourish. The goal is to become the center of innovations and a one-point entry into Ukraine for investors, partners and new technology from all over the world. The mission of UNIT.City is to create a unique innovation platform where advanced companies, start-ups and mavens get an opportunity to cross paths and work together ramping up their growth and honing quality. Park offers its residents a package of additional services for business development: meetings with investors, counseling, mentoring and accelerating programs, prototyping laboratories, great infrastructure for work and leisure.
CEO of UNIT.City Dominique Piotet is a recognized expert with a 20+ year experience in strategy and operational digital transformation for Fortune 500 companies, both as a consultant and as a corporate executive. Previously, Dominique was CEO of FABERNOVEL US, the US subsidiary of the global Innovation agency FABERNOVEL, the founder and owner of Rebellion Lab, a digital strategy consulting agency based in the Silicon Valley. Dominique worked and advised directly CEO’s and Government officials in the US, Europe, China, Australia and Japan. Prior Piote was responsible for digital strategy and innovation for BNP Paribas globally. Dominique has become one of the finalists of the global search initiated by UFuture and done by an international team of “Pedersen&Partners” that is specializing in top-level executives. Piote is also a successful entrepreneur with more than 50 investments in the portfolio, a startup mentor and advisor and is part of several nonprofits as advisor and ambassador. Dominique is also co-owner of Sierra Nevada Hospitality group, with two boutique hotels in the Foothill of Yosemite National Park. Dominique is a contributing columnist for various global publications. He is regularly an invited lecturer for IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Vogue. He is co-author of the best-selling and award-winning book “How the Web changes the world”, published in four languages (French, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish). Dominique has several awards. He is Knight of the National Order of Merit, given by the French President to recognize his work to support the digital transformation of the French economy and for the bridge he created between Silicon Valley and France. He was recognized as Digital Personality of the year in 2013 and received the price of the best book on technology in 2008.
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.
