This week, Kyivstar signed an agreement to purchase 97% of the corporate rights of the IT product company Uklon for $155.2 million. This deal will help strengthen the strongest technological sides of both companies, says Uklon co-founder Dmytro Dubrovsky.
This week, Kyivstar signed an agreement to purchase 97% of the corporate rights of the IT product company Uklon for $155.2 million. This deal will help strengthen the strongest technological sides of both companies, says Uklon co-founder Dmytro Dubrovsky.
"In constant struggle, we were able to build a really cool company, flexible, anti-fragile, capable of surviving and growing under any conditions. We were able to build a company, a leader in Ukraine, we were able to make the first expansion, as we dreamed, and we were able to bring the company to exit (i.e., to acquisition)," wrote one of the co-founders of Uklon, Dmytro Dubrovsky, on Facebook.
Uklon was founded in 2010 by Vitaliy Dyatlenko, Serhiy Smus, Dmytro and Viktoria Dubrovsky.
Currently, Uklon operates in 27 Ukrainian cities and brings together over 100,000 active driver-partners on the platform, who together fulfill over 10 million orders monthly. In addition, in 2023, the company entered the Uzbekistan market.
Uklon has received many purchase offers, said company co-founder Serhiy Smus, but none have interested it. “If someone has a good offer, we will consider it,” he added.
In December 2024, Kyivstar submitted an application to the Antimonopoly Committee (AMCU) to acquire Uklon. However, it was only on the second attempt that it received AMCU approval — on February 6. According to the Forbes Ukraine analytical department, the current price of the company could have been $40-80 million. However, both companies agreed on a price that turned out to be significantly higher — $155.2 million.
"We believe that Kyivstar's experience, expertise, resources, and advanced technologies will help strengthen Uklon's leading services, providing users with an even higher-quality, innovative, and convenient product: our riders, driver partners, and business clients," Uklon CEO Serhiy Grishkov previously told dev.ua.
The transaction is scheduled to close in April 2025, subject to customary closing conditions. The Uklon team, led by CEO Serhiy Grishkov, will continue to work on developing the company's products and services in Ukraine and other markets.
"Honestly, I have always liked the idea of being acquired not by a direct competitor (for example, Uber), but by a large technological player from another industry. In the case of Uber, they would be more interested in simply Uklon's market share. In the case of Kyivstar, we see that they are interested in our technological capabilities, there is a big goal to combine technological products and use ecosystem advantages. I am sure that the Uklon-Kyivstar deal will help combine and strengthen the strongest technological sides of both companies," says Dmytro Dubrovsky.
Kyivstar plans to invest in expanding the ecosystem of Uklon services and products, including multifunctional applications for passengers and drivers, and in further expanding Uklon to other countries.
Recall that the total revenue of VEON (the parent company of Kyivstar) increased by 8.3% in 2024. In terms of total revenue, Ukraine took "second" place.
