The owners of the Capital Times investment company with offices in Ukraine and Belarus, Sergey Goncharevich and Eric Nayman, divided their business into B2B and B2C, keeping the Capital Times brand for Goncharevich’s B2B, Nayman said.
“My longtime partner Sergey Goncharevich and I decided to split Capital Times into two parts. (…) The combination of two completely different business models under one Capital Times brand no longer made economic sense. The Capital Times brand remained with my previous partner Sergey Goncharevich,” he wrote in his YouTube address.
Nayman indicated that he would be engaged in wealth management and B2C in general under the Hugs brand.
According to him, Goncharevich, in turn, will continue to work in the direction of B2B and in the field of corporate finance, he will help companies in finding financial resources, and owners – to buy or sell a business.
Capital Times was founded in 2006 and specializes in investment consulting and wealth management. The main offices of the company are located in Kyiv and Minsk. The managing partners of the company are Erik Nayman, a member of the Council for Economic Development under the government of Ukraine, and Sergey Goncharevich.
HUG’s company specializes in investment consulting. It has over 300 active accounts with Interactive Brockers, over UAH 400 million under management and conducts over 150 transactions daily.
European B2B accelerator Startup Wise Guys plans to invest up to EUR 2 million in Ukraine startups at an early stage in the coming two years. Startup Wise Guys CEO Cristobal Alonso told Interfax-Ukraine that of the 100 startups, in which the accelerator has invested for seven years in the European market, 15 companies are from Ukraine. In total, these Ukrainian startups received support from Startup Wise Guys in the amount of about EUR 600,000.
“By 2020, we plan to make investments in 100 more startups, of which, with the current trend, 15-20% will be allocated to Ukrainian companies. We are planning to increase the total investment, respectively to EUR 50,000. Of this amount, EUR 30,000 will be cash, and EUR 20,000 is investments in the growth program. We would be able to pre-invest another EUR 50,000 in the half of the companies which the accelerator invested in, and in the event of particularly successful startups [Startup Wise Guys will invest] another EUR 100,000 more,” Alonso said.
According to him, earlier investments were up to EUR 40,000, including EUR 20,000 of financial assistance and EUR 20,000 in the development program.
During the acceleration program Ukraine Startup Hunt in Kyiv, a total 48 applications were submitted from Ukrainian startups, of which 20 were allowed to take part in the first qualifying round, and 10 entered the second round. As a result, Startup Wise Guys selected four startups to participate in the final round, which will be held in September this year. The startups-winners will receive up to EUR 30,000 of the seed money, a wide network of contacts, promotion and recommendations for expanding to all European countries.
Of the four winners, three teams were selected in the B2B SaaS and one in the Fintech segment.
Among the winners are Zirity (web and mobile AR application for real-time eyeglasses fitting), StudyDive (the online platform for selection of short-term and long-term educational programs (courses, trainings, seminars), NUWORK (HR tool for recruiting personnel for HoReCa) and Geologic Group (a geolocation solution to improve the security of providing banking services).
