Be flexible and use new strategies – how to survive and develop during the war

Three whales in the sea of force majeure

As part of the N1 Investment Fund, which I am honored to own, we are developing three main products. This is the flagship of the Fund –the sportbank mobile bank, the TRANSENIX service and the Asquad payment system. I will allow myself to briefly dwell on each of them to tell you what results were achieved in 9 months of the war.

sportbank turned three years old in October. These were difficult years associated first with the Covid-19 pandemic and then with 9 months of war. Despite this, we made ambitious plans for 2022 – we planned to increase a million customers and reach an investment payback. Of course, due to the war, some of these plans had to be abandoned. But I believe that considering the conditions, we have achieved decent results: we have more than 500 thousand customers, and by the end of the year we plan to increase them to 650,000, and we also intend to reach the UAH 700 million loan portfolio and UAH 300 million of deposits

sportbank turned three years old in October. These were difficult years associated first with the Covid-19 pandemic and then with 9 months of war. Despite this, we made ambitious plans for 2022 – we planned to increase a million customers and reach an investment payback. Of course, due to the war, some of these plans had to be abandoned. But I believe that considering the conditions, we have achieved decent results: we have more than 500 thousand customers, and by the end of the year we plan to increase them to 650,000, and we also intend to reach the UAH 700 million loan portfolio and UAH 300 million of deposits

In the summer, we closed the deal for another important project – Transenix, which is based on the Tap-on-Phone technology. USD 500 thousand was invested in this project, and I see a future behind it to facilitate the work of small and medium-sized businesses. After all, this mobile application in a smartphone with an NFC-interface has all the basic functions of the POS-terminal. Therefore, it allows entrepreneurs to save on the purchase of terminals.

Transenix is a unique phenomenon on the Ukrainian market, there are only five such projects in the world. It has already passed certification of the largest payment systems – VISA and Mastercard – and is ready to work. I am convinced that our product will be of high quality and in demand, and in the near future will cover the whole Ukraine.

Finally, another project in which the N1 Fund invests is the Asquad payment system, the Ukrainian analogue of Stripe. It began to be developed immediately after the appearance of sportbank, because it was necessary to solve payment problems, create a technology company that would produce fast and high-quality integrations in the field of payment solutions. This would give impetus to further scaling and improving services. We planned to enter the market in March-April of 2022. Due to the war, the exit had to be postponed for six months and in fact, the work began in October. The war made its own adjustments: the development slowed down for six months, and full-fledged work resumed only in October 2022. Now we have to catch up, adapting to the conditions of the market, which is aimed not at development, but at survival. We postpone the main work on the Asquad implementation to 2023 and focus on the European market, which is larger in volume and more predictable.

New times – new strategies

There are a number of projects that I regard as promising in terms of investment. It is clear that after February 24, many of the Fund’s plans were cancelled. In the first months after the full-scale invasion, we suspended the search for new projects altogether as the employees focused on volunteering and helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Closer to the summer, they began to resume work.

First of all, we have slightly reformatted this work. Before the war, the Fund, on the one hand, helped create startups, and on the other hand, acted as an investor. Nevertheless, we faced a problem: one and the same employee is engaged in analysis of investment proposals and development of existing projects.

Therefore, it was decided to divide these areas. On the one hand, the Fund remains a venture capital fund that deals with investments. On the other hand, it acts as a venture builder, i.e. it helps startups create companies, ranging from an idea to full implementation.

We are seriously considering investments in marketplaces that currently lack a fin-tech component. It is absent not because it is unnecessary there. On the contrary, the time for such development has come. But marketplace owners do not always know how to implement this component in their activities. Therefore, we can enter these projects, having many years of experience and valuable expertise, and push development in this direction.

Another area of interest to us is investments in crypto-projects. This idea fascinated me, especially after I talked to the owners of large funds – BlackRock and Morgan Stanley. It is obvious to me that for modern fin-tech, the crypto-component is a must have, otherwise you are hopelessly lagging behind the times. Accordingly, those startups that touch the blockchain at least a little will be able to attract investment more easily.

Therefore, I decided that my fund would also search for startups in this area, gradually increasing the expertise. It is even more promising as the crypto-market in Ukraine is legalized and is becoming increasingly predictable and civilized.

Of course, after 9 months of war, we do not have many reasons for optimism – investors do not stand in line for Ukrainian startups. Yet, the main thing is that Ukraine has declared itself as a brand for the whole world. No one considers us a little-known post-Soviet country or ‘part of Russia’. Our goal is to take advantage of all the victories of such SEO-optimization of our state, which can turn into a global investment hub. Therefore, we work, develop, believe in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and bring our victory closer together!