A fund is starting to work in Ukraine, which will invest in small and medium-sized businesses. It is called Machina, among its founders are entrepreneurs from GR Capital and Nextedo, you can already apply for investments. Sergiy Didkovsky, one of its partners, spoke about the AIN.UA Foundation.
- The size of the fund will be 50-100 million euros. Half of this amount is planned for the early stages of investment, and another half – for the later ones.
- Anchor investors of 40-60% of the fund are European and American institutional investors, now the partners are planning negotiations with the EIF, EBRD, IFC. Another 40-60% are Ukrainian and European family offices.
- The fund is planned to be fully launched before the end of 2022-beginning of 2023, now the partners are negotiating with investors, finalizing the strategy and selecting businesses for investment.
- Business sectors that will be of interest to the fund: fintech, educational technologies, technologies for agriculture, cybersecurity, food technologies (foodtech), e-commerce.
«We prefer software companies over hardware companies. It is imperative that this BCH be white and formal. In addition to the idea of a business, we meticulously look at its organizers and managers”, – says Didkovsky.
- The selection of companies will be made in the same way as in other funds. In the early stages, the criteria for a quality team, export potential and business model prospects will be considered. For projects at a late stage, an analysis of financial statements, the effectiveness of the company’s structure and management is added.
- The amount of investment for businesses at an early stage (revenue up to 2 million euros per year) is 200,000-1 million euros for 10-40% of the company (entry estimate – 500,000 – 1 million euros). For late-stage businesses with revenues of €2-20m per annum, the investment would be €1-5m for 5-25% of the company (estimated at €10-100m).
- Among the partners of the fund:
- GR Capital managing partner Max Filippov (in the fund’s portfolio – Glovo, Deliveroo, Sennder, Wefox, McMakler, Lime, PlanRadar).
- Vlad Nozdrachev, owner of Nextedo University and Superludi Business School.
- PR strategist Sergiy Didkovsky.