You have been building this company for over ten years, and now you are selling it. Can you tell us how it feels?

Maybe it is not the best comparison. You know, it is like you have an adult daughter, which is actually not so adult, and she is moving to her boyfriend. That is how it may feel. I want to cry. And I still cannot accept that now I may not write per Skype to my lawyer or HR anymore, that I may not rush into the meeting rooms.

It feels strange. I can’t sleep well. But I am a serial entrepreneur. And I want to create something more based on all the mistakes I made in the previous project.

I have tons of ideas. And I have everything I need to create another great product in Ukraine.

Can you tell us how big your share was and how much you earned after this deal? Different sources say you’ve earned about $50 million.

Yes, something like that. I have had 55.9% of the Depositphotos common stock.

Why was the sum of the deal not so big? It happens not so often that someone buys private equity in the late stages. They let me quit the company. It’s an all-cash deal. Because usually, the purchaser sets their terms: for example, they give you a big amount of money, but then you must work for them several years and show some results. And if something is going wrong, the amount is shortening.

This time, I was completely free: if I want, I can purchase the Cimpress stock too that also will grow, for sure. A chance to quit and watch the development of my ex-company, staying aside. I lost control over Depositphotos and gave it into the hands of Vadym Nekhai.

Quitting Depositphotos was their condition or your decision?

It happened naturally. I didn’t want to get an offer when I must make the company successful for the next five years, for example, and otherwise, I wouldn’t get the amount I could have got. I had such a thing in my mind. Plus, I always have my own opinion on any event. I can’t work if there is someone over me.

So, I was ready to get one-third as much but at once and be totally free to choose. We presented our team in a way that the company wouldn’t need my presence in the future. Everybody agreed, and I quit. Vadym Nekhai is the most talented leader who went the 10-year way with me, and he will lead the team after me. He is the best option for the team.

What was the reaction of your employees?

During the pandemic, we learned to be on distance. So, the reaction was normal. Yes, there were some emotions but generally under the executives. They knew me for all these 13 years we worked together. The future of the company is full of growth, integrity, and great professionalism without depression. We did a lot. And I am proud of working in Ukraine.

Earlier you told us that in the beginning, the company was too overpriced — $250 million. Are you happy with the current evaluation?

Yes, I am happy. Because if I have not accepted the offer, Crello and Depositphotos highly likely could lose everything. Maybe, you heard that recently, Canva was estimated at $40 bln. And you can’t even imagine how much money they have now to develop their product further. It is a monster competitor.

I am very optimistic about our products, next rounds, etc. But I also need to be honest.

There are still problems in Ukraine to attract investments, and without capital, you cannot compete with those giants. De facto, we are a Ukrainian team and face all problems of our country. Tons of problems… And if we lose time, we can lose everything.

Robert S. Keane and Cimpress offered our team the widest autonomy, experience, markets, and large resources. And shortly, we would get such venture resources for sure. I decided not to risk and give the team a chance to play on the next level that the investors can quit as well. All accepted that idea. I have left, and now I can observe the company as an outsider.

And yes, I can always buy some stock of Cimpress.

What will you do next — a sabbatical or a new business?

I will launch a new project shortly. I already did it, actually. You will get to know about it soon.

So, it’s a new business. What do you plan? Will you do it in Ukraine?

I don’t want to share details too early. But yes, it will be in Ukraine. I love this country so much, and I am very proud of Depositphotos built here. For almost 13 years. We created one of the best product teams in Ukraine, and I think it is only the beginning. I am proud of my team.

Sure, it is a big problem for me personally that in Ukraine, the IT business still has complications. Reforms are running but slow. I will consider all my errors from previous projects and attract the right investors in the new project.

At first, it will be small money. If I will develop a startup to a certain level when it attracts the attention of investors, I will not need so many funds. But it will be a very interesting story I would like to tell you soon. Now it is only at a very early stage: I start to gather the team.

To be pragmatic, is it worth to build a business here now? Many people complain of the overheated market and competitive salary issues.

I don’t see any problems here. Everyone says the market is overheated. But they are just greedy people who would like to pay programmers $1.500 as they used to pay.

In the fact, Ukraine is still much cheaper than U.S., Europe, or Cyprus. At the same time, Ukraine is a beautiful country with nice people. And our growing outsourcing businesses are another evidence of that.

Ukraine is still a wonderful harbor where you can cooperate with very talented and well-educated people. Our deal was supereasy and superfast because our American buyers were excited about what they saw here.

Do you think this deal will bring more investors to the Ukrainian IT market?

I think, yes. It was our mission too to attract funds to our country. For 13 years of working here, we have got billions of hryvnias invested, and we did not park a penny abroad. A part of our mission was to create infrastructure for the product IT. We wanted to show that the investors are ready to invest in Ukrainian products and can enter and quit such companies without problems. That is how a healthy economy works. The more investors successfully quit, the more investments, workplaces, and salaries we get.

Do you plan some other investments, maybe as a business angel?

When you receive some cash, there are always problems: having too much cash is not good for anyone; you need to invest it somewhere. I am not just sitting on a moneybag. I have reinvested all of them already. Partly, in my new business. I invested in Cimpress because I believe in them.

And I am always looking for new projects. If you have something, knock on my door. Always.

A Ukrainian developer of the image bank Depositphotos and the online graphic design platform Crello changed the owner. The American company VistaPrint purchased 100% of its shares. The $85-million deal became the largest deal in the Ukrainian IT market for the last few years. AIN.UA will share with you details of the Depositphotos acquisition and its further steps.

In a nutshell:

• The deal value is $85 million. VistaPrint purchased all 100% of the company; all its shareholders sold their stocks.
• Dmitry Sergeev is completely withdrawing from the project.
• Depositphotos will be further developed; Crello will become VistaCreate.
• The office in Ukraine will work further, and the new owner plans to extend the local team.

The acquiring company

VistaPrint is a major US-based company in the design and marketing industry. It is part of Cimpress, which is listed on the Nasdaq. VistaPrint’s main clients are small businesses worldwide, and it has a wide range of design and printing services. Its divisions deal with content for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media —developing logos, websites, and other branded materials, and printing all promotional materials: from stickers and packaging to banners.

The company was founded by a French entrepreneur, Robert Keane, back in 1998. Since then, it has grown into a business with an annual revenue of over $1.4 billion. It has 17 million small business clients, serviced by 29 offices around the world, and employs about 6,000 people.

Terms of the deal between VistaPrint and Depositphotos

• VistaPrint purchased 100% of Depositphotos, including all its projects, for $85 million: Depositphotos, Crello, Lightfield, Bird In Flight, and WAS.
• All former shareholders, including the EBRD and TMT Investments, agreed on the deal:

“Some of our investors were with us for a very long time, for example, TMT Investments 10 years, the EBRD 6 years. The venture business is about discovering the right moment to enter business and then quitting it with profit. For the investors, the deal with Cimpress was a real chance to quit the business and make money. All of them supported my plan and our team, and I gave the investors a chance to quit,” said Dmitry Sergeev, founder of Depositphotos.

• TMT Investments sold its stake in Depositphotos at the beginning of October: 16.7% was sold for $14.3 million.
• Founder, Dmitriy Sergeev, is leaving the management of the company.
• Now the ex-manager of Depositphotos, Vadym Nekhai, will join Vista as the VistaCreate (Crello) and Depositphotos VP and continue to lead both teams under the supervision of the Vista International Business President, Florian Baumgartner.

According to Dmitry Sergeev, VistaPrint has initiated the deal with Depositphotos. The negotiations, due diligence, and closing of the deal took several months — almost all procedures have been done remotely. There was only one offline meeting in Kyiv with European and American representatives of VistaPrint. The deal was planned to be closed in autumn 2021. But because of waiting for the Ukrainian Anti-Monopoly Committee’s approval, it happened a bit later, on October 1, 2021.

• For VistaPrint, this deal is a part of their $250-million transformation plan. During that transformation, VistaPrint will develop the full-stack design. For that purpose, they purchased a designer marketplace in October 2020 and recently bought Depositphotos.
• The Depositphotos team sees here a possibility to strengthen their market share:

“Apart from the profit, my personal motivation is to give the team and the product a chance not only to solidify their market share but also transform into a competitive product within the short period of time and become a market leader. I believe that VistaPrint will empower Depositphotos and Crello accordingly. In my opinion, it looks like a perfect theoretical business scenario of the fusion with a large player to win the market together. If you will make a wrong decision, the risk of loss is too high,” Sergeev said.

Team in Ukraine

After the deal, the Ukrainian company plans to extend the personnel and hire workers for Depositphotos and VistaCreate, or other VistaPrint products if needed. The company also confirmed to AIN.UA that they want to hire preferably in Ukraine:

“In Ukraine, there are many talented engineers, product managers, and marketers who can reinforce our teams. The company also plans to expand the VistaCreate 24/7 customer service in all countries and main languages with both live chats and hotlines.”

We also have asked about the fate of the Lightfield studio and Bird In Flight and WAS publishers. The answer was that all current projects continue their work.

Depositphotos added that there was an option pool due to EBRD’s investment, and now it is split between the Executives of the company. After closing the deal with VistaPrint, all option holders could realize them. The Executives that participated in the deal have got large bonuses.

Depositphotos history

There was a long way to this deal. The first significant project of Sergeev was the DepositFiles web hosting service. It was sold in 2009. The exact value of the deal is still unknown, but the media say $2 million would be too much.

In the same year, Sergeev launched his new project — Depositphotos. For two years, the startup has developed with its own funds, and in 2011, they got investment from TMT Investments: $3 million for the 27% share. Its capitalization estimate was $10 million.

In 2012, the company already had revenue of $6 million a year, and in 2015, Depositphotos raised the next funding round: $4 million from the EBRD, and $1 million from TMT. In 2016, TMT partially sold a stake in the company for $5.8 million, keeping 16.7%. At that time, the company was already worth $82 million. Depositphotos has raised $8 million since its inception.

You can read a more detailed story of the company in the article of AIN.UA:

To use the Unlimited library, users need to sign up for the platform and, after the 7-day trial period, buy a Crello Pro subscription. It costs $9.99 a month or $7.99 for a year. A Crello Pro subscription user will also receive:

• access to the online editor
• unlimited downloads of projects from the editor
• the ability to add branding styles to the editor – brand components: colors, fonts, and logos;
• tool for removing the background from images – Background remover
• the ability to work together on a design
• access to 200 million photos and videos from Depositphotos – paid and free

Crello says that the amount of content in the Unlimited section will increase sixfold by fall 2021: the library will contain about 6 million photos, graphics, and videos.

How it works

• To access the tool, you need to create a Depositphotos account.
• Then, on the background removal page, upload or drag and drop the necessary image in JPEG or PNG format.
• You can edit not only files bought on Depositphotos but also your content.
• The size of the uploaded image should not exceed 15 MB.
• After processing, you can download the image with a transparent background in PNG format.
• The tool is free.

According to Igor Kaliuzhnyi, Chief Product Officer of Depositphotos, the technology of the new tool is based on neural networks: algorithms analyze the image, process the data, and select the background for automatic removal. The project took about six months to complete.

“The development story began with a desire to set up an ecosystem that would be useful for our users and help simplify their work with content. The next steps will focus on improving the tool and introducing new additional features for a better experience with the outline.”

Igor Kaliuzhnyi, Chief Product Officer Depositphotos

To recap, AIN.UA previously published a big story of Depositphotos. It tells not only about success but also about crises and falls, missed opportunities, closing projects, and new beginnings. Click here to read it.

Today, Depositphotos is a group of content-related projects: a photo/video stock, an online advertising template editor, on-demand studio pavilions, entertainment YouTube channels, and media.

“I want to become a global content platform, with our team retaining control over the business and developing further. As a marketplace, we have traveled quite a long way. As creators of our own content, we are just getting started. We are constantly experimenting,” says Dmitry Sergeev, founder and CEO of the Depositphotos group of companies.

AIN.UA tells the full story of Depositphotos: not only about its success, but also about downfalls and crises, missed opportunities, project closures, and new endeavors that have not yielded a profit yet, but can once become The Next Big Thing.

The first entrepreneurial experience

Dmitry Sergeev first learned about the Internet in 1999. Back then, there were no ICQ, QIP, or Skype, and Google had just been launched. He earned his initial capital by making websites and simple online ads, buying and reselling all sorts of traffic.

“It is a pretty special feeling for an Internet entrepreneur back at the time: you whip up some stuff in an HTML editor to later upload it via a dial-up connection so that it can earn you some money.

Your wife is close by, the baby is crying in the kitchen, and then suddenly, you get a check for that from the US. You don’t know where to go: which bank will cash it. The check is for $52 – and that’s a hell of money! Because you have earned this money through a plug, to put it crudely,” Sergeev recalls.

Sergeev’s first significant project was the file hosting service DepositFiles. The entrepreneur explains its success quite simply: they entered the niche at the right time, riding on the hype, and offered users an interface that was convenient and easy to understand. Back then, there were some large online storage providers already, so Sergeev just took the existing model and improved it.

“We didn’t work with pirates or porn resources, nor did we generate traffic on purpose – we just made the whole thing a little better than others,” Sergeev comments.

Initially, there was just one programmer working on DepositFiles, besides Sergeev. He had come from Dnipro (still called Dnipropetrovsk back then), and he single-handedly, working in Sergeev’s kitchen, managed to do what is done by whole development offices nowadays: a project with millions of users per month.

Like everyone, they profited off download speed. It was deliberately limited, and if the file was large, a free user could wait 24 hours for it to load. But by paying a small amount of money via SMS – generally, less than $1 – he or she would get high speed and multiple transmission streams. Today this model is called “freemium;” the vast majority of mobile and desktop applications are monetized through micropayments.

DepositFiles soon rose to the top 5 but never took the lead. However, Google, PayPal, and other today’s Internet giants worked with the Ukrainian company, and some potential investors offered to unite.

A basement is a Ukrainian-style garage 

The office was based in an old Khrushchev-style residential building not far from the Okruzhna beltway. DepositFiles was becoming widely known, and people wanted to work there, so Sergeev started to hire “people off the street” for the project. They were coming to the interview from all across Ukraine and even from other CIS countries. The team grew to 8 people, so the “khrushchyovka” felt too small.

Even before his online business, Sergeev had bought a basement on a downtown street, Mezhyhirska; he wanted to open a nightclub there but did not have enough money and failed to agree with the neighbors. So he decided to convert it into an office. A friend helped him with refurbishment, and the employees moved the furniture and belongings themselves in a van.

This basement was where the company’s corporate culture began to take shape, although the term was not yet in use in those days. The walls were decorated in the style of the then-popular House, M.D. series.

The absence of windows, the monotonous hum of the engine, and the exhaust system did not bother anyone: it was a place where they stayed late into the night, celebrated the New Year and birthdays.

At the same time, several people slowly and enthusiastically were working on Depositphotos.

“We were constantly trying something new, testing some kinds of models. A photobank was one of such experiments,” the entrepreneur says.

A beautiful adventure comes to an end

In the early 2000s, the file-hosting sector began to collapse amid the anti-piracy drive. Sergeev tried to transform DepositFiles and redirect its enormous traffic to the social media sector. At that time, VKontakte was booming on Runet, and the team tried to occupy this niche, but the attempt was unsuccessful. People just wanted to download or send over a file. And there was a lot of “trash” among those files, as Sergeev puts it.

“We were constantly receiving letters demanding to remove something. We were deleting files by hundreds of thousands every day; it was very bad,” Sergeev recalls.

“You couldn’t call DepositFiles piracy. It was a beautiful adventure. As soon as it became clear that the market was in trouble, I withdrew from the business.”

Many similar projects had been sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. Sergeev was less lucky. He sold DepositFiles not to make money but to get rid of the burden in Sergeev’s telling. DepositFiles was sold as a set of scripts and a user base-priced at approximately 0.03 cents apiece. Sergeev does not reveal the exact amount. Media have previously suggested a sum in the region of $2 million, but the entrepreneur calls that an overestimate.

“I was lucky to pick the right moment and find a buyer. Following that, file-sharing platforms ceased to exist as a business sector, and the remaining projects were sold for a song – if they were sold at all.”

Sergeev admits he has not visited the DepositFiles website for nearly ten years. Today any mass-scale uncontrolled file sharing is banned, so the model that was followed by DepositFiles, RapidShare, and other file hosting services that were popular back in the Aughties, is gone for good. Silicon Valley has come up with a new file sharing method: cloud storage platforms like Dropbox or Google Drive. Copyright has prevailed.

New Deposit. The beginning

The sale of DepositFiles was completed in 2009. The same year, Sergeev launched a new project with a similar name, the photobank Depositphotos.

This time again he did not offer anything revolutionary: by the time Depositphotos was launched, there had been some large photobanks on the market: GettyImages, Istockphoto (later bought by GettyImages), and others. They were also selling box scripts allowing users to build their own photobank. One such script was used as a foundation to build Depositphotos. Sergeev bought it for $250.

He admits he did not pay much attention to Depositphotos for a long time – just visited it to see how it was going and kept himself busy elsewhere. Meanwhile, the service was acquiring unique designs, features, and a user interface of its own.

As a way to attract photographers, they were simply paid for uploads: 10 cents per shot, which added up to tens and hundreds of dollars per person. According to Sergeev, about a million dollars were spent to stock up on photographs. Another $150,000 was put into the office and salaries.

Users were drawn in for a free trial period.

“Now it is a standard model that no Internet project can launch without. But back in the days, it was viewed as something next to fraud. You asked for their credit card details in advance, then people forgot to unsubscribe, you charge them money, and PayPal comes to you to find out who you are,” Dmitry recounts.

Many of those attracted by the free trial stayed, and Depositphotos hit its stride. An unsophisticated SEO brought good organic traffic to the website. The brand continuity also helped: everybody on the Internet knew DepositFiles, as it was the fifth most visited file hosting service in the world, and people were interested to see what the new project was all about.

Competitors did not hesitate to take advantage of DepositFiles’ “pirate” aura.

“They slung mud at us on web forums, signaling that the photobank market was being invaded by Russian pirates, who would now rob you. We mobilized our PR guys to deal with this wave of negativity properly from the start. And eventually, it worked in our favor because Depositphotos is actually pure copyright.”

Shares for sale. Expensive!

Depositphotos was growing “out of pocket” for two years, following which, TMT Investments put $3 million into the company in exchange for a 27% stake in 2011. Back then, the entire business was valued at $10 million.

Now, Sergeev says, he regrets not having raised investments earlier. But in 2009–2010, he vastly overvalued his company: when Depositphotos was 20 times smaller, Sergeev asked investors for 20 times more funding.

“When Instagram was acquired for a billion, I couldn’t sleep at night: I didn’t understand how this rubbish can be acquired for such huge sums of money. Riding on the hype, we went to a roadshow and put the value at $250 million while earning $1 million per year. When they asked us why so much, we told them, because! They replied they would think about it – and didn’t invest.”

One of the most generous offers that Depositphotos declined was to enter at 30% with a valuation of $50 million. This would be a $15 million investment, much more than the company eventually raised.

Another offer that Sergeev rashly declined had come from Fotolia, already a popular photo service at that time. Its founder Oleg Tscheltzoff wanted to buy part of the Ukrainian photobank’s stock at an early stage, but Dmitry would not sell.

After a while, Fotolia itself was sold to the giant Adobe for almost a billion dollars.

“If we had agreed then, it could have been a nice deal. I would make more money than I have now,” Sergeev recalls.

Depositphotos goes out into the world

Depositphotos used TMT Investments’ money to hire PR experts, prepare first bases for users, and enter all forums. The service attracted attention in the USA; Americans started to invite the company to conferences and offer partnerships.

“On top of that, Getty Images wanted to buy us,” Sergeev recalls. Obviously, he did not sell the service.

In 2011, Depositphotos already had 40 employees, and there was no room for all in the basement. Sergeev rented another semi-basement office nearby and then – several apartments. The team kept growing, and Depositphotos moved to a 5-story building in Podil. Within it, the company grew to 150 people.

In 2012, Yevgen Sysoyev, AVentures’ managing partner, joined the Board of Directors. It was he who explained to Sergeev that it had been a mistake to decline the above offers. He also introduced the founder to several journalists: Depositphotos began active life in the public eye.

By that time, the company’s annual earnings had already reached $6 million. Depositphotos had organic growth of 100% per month. In 2013, Forbes Ukraine valued Depositphotos at $100 million. As for Sergeev himself, he said that $70–75 million was a more realistic figure.

Depositphotos raised the next round of investment in 2015 when it received $4 million from the EBRD and $1 million from TNT. In March 2016, the company was valued at $82 million during TNT’s partial cashout: the fund sold a part of its stake to an undisclosed European investor. According to Sergeev, before 2017, Depositphotos was growing at an annual rate of 50%.

Other projects

Despite his success with Depositphotos and an increasing amount of work, Sergeev remained true to his entrepreneurial habit of trying new things all the time. In 2013, he attempted to harness the fast-growing smartphone market and launched Clashot, a bank of amateur photos. But the app didn’t make it a scalable project.

“We can acknowledge our failure. Although it seemed to me then that I had invented a new Facebook,” Dmitry says.

“Literally all photobanks, with no exceptions, did the same thing, but no one was able to monetize the collected content.”

During the ICO hype, Sergeev wanted to reanimate Clashot, but part of the Board did not approve of the initiative. The project was shut down and archived.

In 2014, Depositphotos turned to the media industry and began to publish an online art and photography magazine, Bird In Flight. It was headed by Eugene Safonov, the first editor-in-chief of The Village’s Ukrainian version. The launch of a specialized magazine gave Depositphotos an opportunity to raise brand awareness in the Russian and Ukrainian markets.

The edition was successful: BiF was praised as the best in its subject area. Inspired by this success, Sergeev launched another media outlet: WAS, an online popular history magazine with BiF’s Ivan Siyak as editor-in-chief.

In addition to WAS, the company launched two more projects in 2017: the Lightfield photo studios and the Crello image editor.

“Crello was a logical step in the development of Depositphotos within the content sector. We had a photobank with a colossal amount of images. Then our market was invaded by Adobe which bought Fotolia with a bank of 60 million images, for $800 million. Photobanks responded by launching online editing tools, so-called ‘browser photoshops.’ Shutterstock was the first one to do it. We also launched our own editor, Crello.”

By using templates, Crello allows you to put together ads and promotional materials, with no design skills required. At launch, the service was completely free. According to Sergeev, about 60,000 new users registered with Crello on launch day. At first, the editor grew by 100% per year while gradually introducing paid features. This led to a slowdown in the growth.

With a 2,500 square meter area, Lighfield was the largest photo studio in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Depositphotos had invested UAH 40 million in its launch and planned to put up another 150 million, eventually investing about a third of this amount. But the plans changed in 2020.

Lightfield had two business streams. The first one was something like a coworking space for photographers, with an option to rent equipment and premises or organize a full working cycle of photo and video production. Lightfield also worked as a production facility for major customers: it handled large orders from agencies and companies. To do it, the company employed its own specialists and producers.

Everything went well until late 2019 when the world was hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

The pandemic changes the plans

Lightfield was affected by the pandemic more than Sergeev’s other projects. Projects were shut down, and studio pavilions stood idle. Neither did the coworking space pay off: for a photographer, an hour of work in Lightfield cost UAH 400, but these earnings were too little.

“With those immense spaces, we were just standing by and paying for them,” says Sergeev.

We decided that, instead of closing the project, we should reinvent it. We laid off part of the employees, half of the premises were given up. The remaining part was used to shoot stock content: short-themed clips that users could combine to create complete videos for sale. It was then that Sergeev paused to think: why not create the end product independently?

“Having produced stock content on a wholesale scale, we shoot a lot and have a wealth of experience in it, anyway. We are familiar with the greater part of the filming process. We have begun making our video content more sophisticated and are trying to reach a wider audience with it. Now, it is a range of channels on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. It is the only text for now; we shall see what can grow out of it.”

One of such projects will be the YouTube channel “How it WAS: popular history,” a reincarnation of the closed WAS. The magazine has lost all advertising revenue, and its investor has decided to remodel it.

According to Sergeev, this area has required but minimal investment: so far, they have been delivering the very cheapest DIY entertainment content; if it works out, the team will go for more complex filming.

Bird In Flight has suffered less than WAS: according to Sergeev, its adverting revenue has fallen dramatically, but not to zero. Today BiF pays back 50% to 70% of the allocated budget.

“BiF is quite complex content. It may pay off, but it doesn’t have to. The project has different objectives,” Dmitry says.

BiF has 20 editorial staff, its readership comprising about a million users. Sergeev has no plans to disband the project.

Crello also continues to develop, currently being an unprofitable startup. And that in addition to being quite expensive: according to Sergeev, nearly a third of Depositphotos’ budget is spent on Crello.

Crello remained free of charge from its launch until 2019 when the board decided to start monetizing it. This led to a churn of users.

“Canva costs $9 per month with a trial period of 30 days, and we offer $8 per month with a trial period of 15 days. But in terms of the product, Canva is ten steps ahead,” Sergeev explains.

Crello has now turned to the freemium model: the basic service is free of charge, but some features are only available for a fee. This way, Sergeev wants to gain customer traction.

“I am sure that now profit is not the most important thing for Crello. In our pursuit of money traction, we risk losing time and missing the market. We need to become more visible, and we are getting closer to that,” he explains.

“Now we need a user base more than money. We need to gain a firmer foothold in the market, and then we can start the monetization.”

Before the pandemic, Sergeev planned to raise investments in Crello, but he has dropped the idea now: “Until there is clear traction, it will be very difficult to talk to investors. Money-wise, you gain a 20% annual growth rate, but the user base is shrinking. Or the user base is growing rapidly, whereas monetization is falling. This would raise many questions. Investors should see a clear strategy and the point.”

Tough times

The pandemic has taken a terrible toll on the small and medium-sized businesses that Depositphotos focuses on. Sales fell by up to 20%, depending on the market, with the maximum drop in March and April. In March, the most noticeable slowdown occurred in the EU (Italy, Spain, and Poland), and in April, in Russia and the CIS. Besides the global pandemic, the Latin region experienced a political and financial crisis related to the devaluation of the Brazilian currency.

The sales recovered only by September 2020. According to Sergeev, there was even a slight increase of about 10% compared to last year.

However, very few employees use the company’s 3,500-square-meter office, costing the company almost $500,000 a year. In fact, 90% of the employees work from home, but Sergeev refuses to give up the office.

Depositphotos currently employs 450 people, with about 400 of them working in Kyiv. Although Depositphotos is legally a US group of companies with offices in Ukraine, the US, the UK, Germany, Russia, Poland, Italy, and Cyprus, in fact, it is a Ukrainian company.

“There are about 50 people in all these counties. In this way, we keep the minimum required for the proper legal structure of the European representation and business security in general.

In Cyprus, we have 20+ people – the Depositphotos sales department, part of the Crello marketing team, and part of the Crello developers hired outside of Ukraine. In the US, we have an API team, sales representatives, and management. There are also a few representatives in Western and Eastern Europe, England, China. There are up to 20 people for all Western regions and Asia,” Sergeev explains.

The foreign staff may soon grow significantly. Despite the difficulties the pandemic has caused, it has its advantages.

“We do like hiring all over the world now, and it’s becoming the norm. Previously, you had to show a job candidate the office, a coffee machine, a sea view from the window, a parking lot, nametags, smoothies, and a three-course lunch, and a lot of people turned their noses up and said, “It’s hot in here.” And if you wanted the staff to come to you from Spain or Egypt, you had to surprise them with some meeting room and a sleeping bag right there. And now everyone has an equal footing, a kitchen. I don’t know how long we can operate like this. But I have the feeling it has gotten better.

By the way, I also have a small child sitting on my lap most of the time while I work. So I would not say that I like remote working just because I’m so privileged and have a bigger apartment,” Sergeev says.

Unconquered China

The pandemic is not the only difficulty; the competition has also intensified. Canva entered the market with huge resources, which, among other things, provides a free image database in its service. FreePic with $250 million from good investment firms, a newcomer Storyblocks, and others – all of them eat away market share, slowing the growth of Depositphotos and other players.

“I can’t say what market share we have today. If we talk only about micro stocks, the volume of the global market is about $12 billion a year, and we occupy up to 1% of the market,” Sergeev estimates.

The primary income of Depositphotos comes from the markets of English-speaking countries (including the US) and Europe, which account for 65% of the company’s business. Ukraine and the CIS countries, where Depositphotos has a leading position, 12% of the company’s income, take second place. The rest comes from Asia and Latin America. According to Sergeev’s estimates, China could double the company’s turnover if Depositphotos entered that market directly. The market is huge and rich, and there is a significant uncovered demand for the service. But all attempts by Depositphotos to open a representative office in China have failed. Therefore, the company still works there through resellers, similarly to the largest competitors, including Canva.

“An American or Ukrainian cannot start a company in the PRC; only a Chinese citizen can do it. You have to go there, look for people who won’t steal your business, get a license, and register a company. All this takes a very long time,” says Sergeev.

But that’s not the most challenging part. China has its regulatory agency, similar to Roskomnadzor, which closes down everything without warning from time to time. Not just any particular page, but the whole project at once.

What’s next?

Now the growth of Depositphotos has significantly slowed down. If in 2019 the service grew by 20% compared to 2018, then in 2020, Sergeev does not expect the result to be more than 10-15%. Nevertheless, the company has enough income to support itself and its startups.

In December 2020, Depositphotos rebranded for the first time since its founding. The new visual identity for the company was developed by the CREVV agency. It changed the logo, font, communication, and positioning. “Ordinary Stock for Unordinary People” is the new concept of the rebranded Depositphotos now.

“In the 11 years that our service has been in operation, we have been able to understand our users well. They are brave in their expressions. At the same time, they are in constant search not only for inspiration and ideas but also for simple and effective solutions for their tasks. That’s why we have strengthened our communication with a new visual identity, which is based on simplicity and creativity, emphasizing the diversity of the content of our platform,” explained Depositphotos CMO Alina Volchek, who was in charge of the rebranding.

Sergeev has no plans to leave the business and calls himself an “involved founder,” that is, a founder who personally leads the team. Sometimes he does this haphazardly, but it has worked so far. However, he says that he has never received any offers to buy the business that would satisfy him.

“I don’t see an opportunity to get out of the business at the current moment. You can get out a little bit, lose control and start building a rocket to Mars and then it turns out that this niche is occupied.

When the time comes to get out, I will get out. When there are more powerful ideas for the future and serious proposals, I think I will agree. But not right now. I feel the way things work, and I realize that right now is not the time.

I’m thankful for the current investors who are also with me and don’t want to exit the business and reject the offers that they receive sometimes,” Sergeev explains.

We met at IDCEE in 2012. Since we delivered our speech, a number of investors stood in line to approach us. Representatives of venture department of EBRD were among these investors. Then we had 2013, and everyone had other important things in mind. However, in 2014 EBRD representatives contacted us once again. This time, the dialog was more constructive. For the second time, our current investor TMT Investments brought us together. I am very grateful to them for that commitment. Apart from growth and development by means of the raised funds that all VC-funds strive for, our Company was expected to follow the best practices in future. Briefly speaking, it means that since this partnership is established, there cannot be and ambiguity, mediocre reports and opaqueness. Whenever possible, everything should correspond to the best practices, common for international business, and, of course, a business itself should be developed harmoniously. As for transparency we are 100% audited. For the fourth year Depositphotos are audited in the USA as well as in Ukraine and whenever we are present by «Big 4» company. As for business development here we try to do everything in our power to win, remaining within the established network and avoiding defocusing. It is not always that we are good at doing it, but most often we succeed. As of today, I am satisfied with finding such investor and will make every effort to ensure that everyone involved could benefit from the investments.

Here and further photo of Olga Zakrevskaya

Since raising the round A we have opened one of the largest studio-hub in Europe, expanded our content database up to 67 million files (the database has almost doubled) this collection is growing by 1.2 million files per month. This year a number of logged-in users of photobank is expected to exceed 5 million. We are growing by 30-35% annually. Depositphotos, as our core project, has become a sustainable business. Now it is not a startup, which has to grow by 300% annually. We are happy to see what is going on.

Would you, please, tell us what you launched the studio for and what the commercial advantage of this project is for your Company?

It is rather an image-building project for us, proceeding from the fact that in the structure of total income the income from Lightfield is quite low. For today, the studio is a startup that will strengthen the core business in future. The launch cost us about 30 million UAH. We are also going to invest about 150 million UAH in the studio. We believe that at the height of success it is possible to earn up to 300 million per year in this sector as far as for Ukrainian market the photographs are quite impressive gains. Besides Ukrainian market, for sure, we will try to enter European market. Since September we will launch advertisement campaign in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. For the time being, we focus on the Eastern Europe. We’ll see how it goes. We assume that by the end of the year the studio will be able to reach a breakeven point. All our projects, including media, are self-sustaining. All projects are paid off more or less. A synergy of everything that we launch yields good results. For instance, running media project in order to make money out of banners with Google is not our path. However, it is our approach to create media products in order to draw attention of major content producers. We have one of the largest photostudios in Europe, and sooner or later this is going to work.

Depositphotos background information

• Year of foundation: 2009
• Number of employees: 400 people
• Collection: 67 million photos
• Monthly growth: 1.2 million photos
• Content suppliers: 45 000 people
• Buyer: about 4.8 million people
• Investment amount: $8 mi8llion Dollars in two rounds
• Location of offices: Kyiv (headquarter), New York, Moscow, London, Berlin, Milan, Warsaw
• Subsidiaries: Lightfield studio, Bird in Flight and WAS media, Crello online editor

Now we have 15 opened pavilions, thematic halls, decorated as kitchens, lofts, bars, hospital, and laboratory. These premises are quite easily transformed. There are also lecture halls, capable of hosting the audience up to 200 people. There are wardrobe and scene shops. In spring we started leasing the halls as TV-channels, agencies and production studios visit us to make video shooting. Among the Clients that we host there are very famous ones and all of them are satisfied. Although it’s just the very beginning and we continue to learn and improve our skills in this field.

You say that the studio occupies a tiny fraction of the total income. What does the structure of Depositphotos incomes looks like at the moment?

The most significant part of the structure incomes from sale of stock photos. It is our primary business. We are quite a huge photobank.

We create content and sell it not just via Depositphotos, but also through other photobanks it is the second place by proportion of the income. About 20% of the studio income is covered by leasing and local market. This proportion will decrease on account of growth of the key source of studio income creation of our own content. Enterprise-clients from Ukraine and throughout the world start cooperating with the studio: it is often that someone needs photos, which are unavailable even in the stock list.

From the point of view of foreign investors your first business, DepositFiles, could be called risky. It didn’t stop EBRD, did it?

We have never discussed this issue with them. Probably, you mean that DepositFiles was a «shadow business». Murky business.  However, there is a nuance: when we started DepositFiles it was absolutely «white business». We had no problems with copyrights. It was just an undertaking and that’s it. This model worked in the network along with the other ones. All well-known file exchangers were created in the USA, Europe and later throughout the rest of the world. Although, when the problems started and the governments of powerful states began regulating the process, and, on the other hand, political parties (e.g., the Pirate Party) began to emerge and powerful attorneys became engaged, it became clear that it is a shitty business and I went out of it. Most probably, investors did not care about it.

Even if they were curious about it, it would look like a story of an entrepreneur who timely managed to understand the situation on the market and managed to go out of one controversial project and launch the second project, which is being successfully developed. You, probably, remember that from time to time the sellers of alcohol are declared illegal. So, the file exchanging business also faces dry law today. I don’t know what is going to happen next. Actually, I don’t want to know it. I enjoy working within the model, which I use now.

Why the model of file exchangers failed? If we look at the fate of Ukrainian file exchangers, starting from Infostore, it is quite a sad picture.

Yes, you are right. When we just started dealing with it, this could be made a global story. Investors, who were in this business, intended to invest hundreds of millions of dollars and offer these projects at IPO. In our case, when we encountered continuous influx of complaints from copyright holders (which we tried to delete millions of files daily), the negative gathered like snowball and it became just impossible to work. A story with file exchangers had bad consequences: the movie and music business have taken different path, preferring not to negotiate with file exchangers for monetization of content, but to close such services.

In my opinion, the breaking point came in 2011, when they closed Megaupload of Kim Dotcom and American government indicted him. I left this business in two years before these events. It was a final evidence of the fact that it is impossible to bring these projects into legitimate business. Copyright holders hire very powerful lobbyists and Hollywood companies spend colossal money on combating such services. Just a few world leaders, like Apple, succeed to reach an agreement with monsters from music industry. Kim Dotcom is a serious and brave guy. He made attempts to promote idea of file exchangers one way or another. He was supported by Steve Wozniak and other famous guys all over the world. Nevertheless, they just crashed him. Now I don’t even want to hear about file exchangers. At present, it is illegal, and that’s it. We have to accept this fact and find something else to do.

So, from the perspective of the hypothetical copyright holder, you moved from the dark side to the bright one.

It’s all nonsense! Both kinds of business are legal. When I dealt with it, both businesses were on the bright side. However, over the time the claims were raised against DepositFiles. That is why we left the market of file exchangers to close this chapter once and for all. Sean Parker, that probably Facebook exists owing to, created file exchanger Napster and the whole music industry of the USA fought against this service. It does not mean that Facebook is occupied only by pirates. Time changes and priorities also change.

What is the attitude of foreign investors to the companies from Ukraine?

It seems to me that the last progress in our life for example, visa waiver is a strong trigger for investors, including those from the USA. It is a signal that we have chosen the right path. I mean that we meet proper requirements of the civilized world and obtain visa waiver for that. It is a signal. However, you can troll me here as much as you like. Nevertheless, I believe that Ukraine will succeed. It is a strong country. Although, I would like Ukrainians to be on our own, instead of acting in the interests of someone else. We should undergo through some kind of self-identification. We should treat other parties as partners that we need, without stooping to the level of madness and malice. Under any scenario, we should adhere to the European values, preserving Ukrainian dignity. It would be a very strong cocktail if we raise our country to a new level in a unique way.

Office of Depositphotos

In 2014-2015 we really faced the problem of investors fear to enter our market. They saw a nightmare picture, provided by foreign Mass Media. Even now the picture is almost the same. At least, for ordinary people. Probably you have noticed that Ukrainian news agenda is always the same, the same picture. They do not show faces of happy people, top-level companies that we are trying to build here. Instead, they demonstrate blood and tears. Political trolls fuel this picture. We need to find alternative ways to inform foreign investors on our potential and intentions. It is hard, but not hopeless.

When we contacted about a thousand of investors in 2014, many of them feared to work with unstable region and offered relocation. As for now, I think that their mind has been shifted. We should start contacting them and not to be afraid of it.

Your post about refusal from relocation. That is why we stay went viral in its time. Have you changed your point of view on business relocation and moving abroad since that time?

A position to reside and work in Ukraine is the same. I would like to build the company de facto here. We operate under the American, European and Ukrainian jurisdiction. Our story is American holding, but de facto Ukrainian company with offices throughout the world, with big R&D office and brains in Ukraine. Of course, 90% of our employees work in Ukraine and we bring capital to Ukraine, and not vice versa. This is a kind of our mission at this hard time for our country. We are not going to take our belongings and relocate, unless we have flying jets above our heads or gunners in masks shake down our office. In this case, our mission will differ.

One of the reasons of regular time-to-shove-off discussions are searches of IT companies. If previously IT community was unanimous in this respect, now searches and seizures are executed on suspicion of dealing with the separatists. That’s why it is difficult for IT community to understand whether this is a real reason or just a pretext for grabbing the assets. Now a part of the community, while discussing such news, supports law-enforcement agencies.

Are you afraid, staying in Ukraine, that somebody could show up with a search warrant?

What could they seize from us? What to search for? I think that, in most of the cases, the declared reasons for searches of IT companies, consisting in their links with terrorists, is a bullshit. As far as I am familiar with the inner functioning of Ukrainian IT, it seems very unlikely.

The most important thing is that this hysteria should not contribute to impunity of the authorities. After all, we are in Europe, and here we should put an end to this issue. We should keep it in mind. In Europe no one seizes IT offices in masks. We should also prevent artificial fueling of this issue. It should not be a political project on the threshold of something horrible. I remember revolutions of 2004 and 2013. Many of my friends were nearby. Now a chill creeps from what is happening. It all didn’t happen the way we expected it to be. Although, I blame this anxiety on lack of information on actual processes and, at the same time, excessive network awareness. I still believe in something better. Even very educated people let’s say, the cream of nation, are going a little bit crazy on the issues, related to disdain. As for pseudo-patriots, sitting in front of monitors and enjoying the fact that someone’s servers are seized they are just pig-filthy humans, who need to face up the real situation. However, it is impossible, because that’s how humans are built. I understand this.

If we hold a course for Europe, we can’t let our IT community live in fear of repressive or illegal sources of influence. Although, most probably, I greatly overestimate Ukrainian IT community. It is not so meaningful for the society and politicians.

Concerning searches, it seems to me that most of these stories have no actual terroristic background. Maximum, some crazy employee with different views can flood or post something and Security Service of Ukraine visits the company to clarify the situation. Or, in the old manner, they want to receive something in exchange for the appropriate settlement of the issue. I still believe that it’s ending. Actually, I am very naive in this sense, I know it for sure. However, I would better be naive than expect illegal actions and be afraid of lawbreakers. I will always be sure that they are able to handle the situation.

I hope this will not happen to us. Even if it happens, we are ready to cooperate and provide all information in compliance with the Law of the country where we work. We are ready to tackle the situation until its complete settlement. We adhere to all rules, laws and orders, not only Ukrainian, but also American and European. We are being watched not just in Ukraine, but also overseas. One more thing: we have nothing to seize, apart from gumshoes from the scene shop.

Since you started talking about sanctions: if someone downloads a photo where the Crimea is Russian, what measures do you usually take?

We work with 192 countries of the world. So, very different situations can happen. The Crimea is not the only problematic region of the world, and complaints always arise. We follow the rules, established by the Law. The same approach is applied to the Crimea: we filter the pictures with Russian version of the Crimea. However, there is a strange situation. For instance, you wish to illustrate fully pro-Ukrainian article with a map of the world, where you yourself describe position of the enemy and his/her vision. What will you do? Will you delete the Crimea from Ukrainian version? Here is another example: you need to find fascist symbols in the stock list. Some kind of arrows with crosses and the Nazi salutes to illustrate Hitler’s Vision of Europe. What should be done? In this case we are just a service, where you can take everything, which complies with the Law. Plus DMCA. We do not always have time to track disputable issues, but immediately response to complaints. Concerning the Crimea, the matter is closed.

At iForum you spoke about entry to the global markets. Have there been any changes in the rules for entry to the global markets since the moment when you launched the Company?

In general, nothing has changed. If you create an excellent product, it is not important where you are sitting, the product will be in high demand anyway. In the later stages of business the question is no longer about maximum market expansion. You always calculate whether, for instance, you need China and how much money you are willing to invest in this launch, etc.

At the initial stage, startup stage, do, at least, something a version in English, let it be even Broken English, launch it, adapt it, and you will get some traffic. It is quite simple. If your idea is worth any attention, you will not have even to think about entering other markets: sole market will just limit your growth. For example, a story with Prisma, developed by our friends. They entered Russian market. Users, being on the wave of hype, crashed their servers. Nevertheless, they tested out the technology and entered other markets. It is called controlled growth. The same story is with Nimses as far as I’ve seen, they are closed for American ID yet.

What do you think about Nimses, since you have already mentioned them?

While it was still not launched, journalists, who got this application in their hands, asked me to express my opinion about it. It seems that this article has never been published. I am not aware of the reasons. I think that it is a lost cause due to project economics. I would like to believe that they succeeded. However, I feel that the whole thing with social networks is closed for the nearest decades or even hundreds of years. If we invest serious money in redistribution of capital within social media, it will rapidly be concentrated in a group of people with giant capital. It would work in case if we involve, for instance, cryptocurrencies, which grow alongside with the project. Though, I have to acknowledge that I haven’ studied them enough and I am not their user. I might be wrong.

We had a similar story with Clashot content is paid by likes. It is very quickly understood that you wouldn’t have enough money to convert it in real money and no advertisement would redeem that loss. By the way, this is the reason why we derailed this project.

In brief, it seems to me that, for today, social media is a dead issue.

What are the niches beyond the dead issue?

It is artificial intelligence, e-commerce and content production. It can be complementary to social media. It can also become the strongest segment of social media. For example, it can cost more that the social media.

With regard to your niche of photo stocks, would you, please, voice your forecast for 5-10 years?

In our niche we have a lot of outstanding issues. For instance, it is a problem of search over visual content. Even Google has not addressed it ideally. An answer to the question: «How to find what you need in 100 million photo database?» has a lot of prospects for development of our market. However, if we are speaking at macroscale level, our market is not that big: 2 billion and quite moderate growth. We do not expect miracles, but are continuously looking for models to create adjacent markets. We will just continue fighting for a share of this small but sustainable market. Someone, who is smarter, will stay afloat.

Can artificial intelligence be engaged in solving this problem?

This is what I am telling: the future will come when you as a user are able to ask Siri or Alexa to find the photo, which personally you consider cool, and these services will be able to do it. Let’s assume that 10 employees in a department are searching for illustrations for a huge enterprise-client. This client asks to find a photo of yellow shoes on a sunny background. Now these photos are found manually and the employees know the client’s context and needs. They spend a lot of time on searching. In future the artificial intelligence will replace thousands of such employees and will be able immediately to find the most relevant photos.

The problem is that, for today, artificial intelligence is confined to existence within the framework of huge corporations like Amazon or Google, which have available resources. For instance, in order to arrange our experimental neural network learning at Amazon, we would need to spend about $60,000 $200,000 monthly.

Are you now involved in any R&D works in the area of machine learning and neural networks?

Our whole department is working on this subject, making experiments to improve search results, ranking, etc. Our neural networks are working on systems for selection of similar images, these networks are continuously learning and we invest huge amounts of money in this process. We have hosting partners. We carry out a great deal of work in this area. This is the future.

How do you plan to develop Depositphotos?

As a market place. However, supplementary projects are also possible. I am a serial entrepreneur and I don’t see myself as only photobank builder. If tomorrow there is a need to fly to Mars that will bring money, I’ll do it, provided that I have enough energy and time.

Now we are logically developing in the field of content. We have a photobank with colossal number of images. Adobe penetrated our territory of photostocks, having bought Fotolia with a bank of 60 million images for $800 million. Photobanks responded to this by launching online editors photoshops in browsers. Shutterstock was the first to create online editor in return. We have recently launched Crello editor.

By the way, when they say that in Crello we partially copied Canva it is cool, and I don’t see anything wrong here. It is, in principle, impossible on the market of similar solutions to create something totally new. All online browsers are alike. Any modern phone will remind iPhone. The same is with online editors. We have taken the best of the existing solutions and added our tricks. In our case it is an access to 60 million images. Our right choice is evidenced by numbers: at the day of launch there was a fantastic hype and about 60,000 new users logged in. We correct bugs and move forward. It will be a large project. The strongest team is working on it under the leadership of Luda Nebozhak a real professional.

The market that Crello is functioning on is a very promising as, probably, 90% of people do not know how to use photoshop. In order to create advertisement, they buy photos, go to designer, and pay him for photo ruches and filters. If they are not satisfied with the result, they go to another designer and pay more. As for our editor, by pushing a couple of buttons you are able to launch advertisement campaign in Facebook.

How are you going to develop media projects? Besides, what photobank needs media for?

We do not move towards political Mass Media. We are producing media materials, related to visual culture. Bird in Flight is considered the best in this field. And we want to be something more than the market place, selling photos. We would like to progress and educate, to bring the high-class media professionals, photographers and designers together as a community as well as everyone, working in the field of visual culture. After all, it brings money. We have launched WAS.media and since September we are going to enter the niche of education segment on Youtube in the USA and Ukraine.

How many people are now employed by Depositphotos? Do you have any plans to expand and open new offices?

Now we have almost 400 employees. This year we would like to expand in Europe and Ukraine and to grow by 20% for the next 2 years.

How do you hire employees?

Now I personally communicate in the Company with 4-5 people, who have professionally grown in Depositphotos and are TOP managers. We take principal decisions. I cannot say that I am actively involved in recruiting process. We hire employees according to their professional skills.

Lightfield office studio of Depositphotos

Of course, when it comes to recruitment and work with technical specialists, it has its own specifics. Once we were even mentioned on the website ebanoe.it. It is only from this website that I’ve got to know about existence of our problems with HR activities, which should be fixed.

Did you feel any disappointment, having appeared on ebanoe?

That’s ok until it is not dirty and filthy. A sort of WikiLeaks, but related to IT. In our case those, who come as our employees, see the whole story from inside. We really do our best to meet the requirements, established by labor market. It’s not a big deal if one of 400 employees writes something negative. Of course, we have some staff turnover and disgruntled employees. However, we use our best endeavors to address these problems. I was disappointed just because someone gets things out without making an effort to solve the problem in-house. At the same time, it is very easy to solve it in-house. We have all tools for this purpose. To sum it up, we take every effort to improve ourselves and thanks for criticizing us.

What can interest you to work on, apart from photobank?

We just don’t have enough time to encompass all things. I’d love to launch other projects. I am interested in e-commerce. If I had time and resources, I would launch something like that on Chinese market. This is a very interesting market. However, it is quite closed due to language barrier and political issues. Although, it is a market of big money and huge opportunities.

It would be curious to get involved into artificial intelligence. We, especially Ukrainians, need to move towards this sector. We have a low number of projects in this sphere. Medical technologies are also of great interest. For example, not so long ago I saw a cool startup. Its idea was to measure your pressure, to send measurement results for analysis in order to forecast state of your health for tomorrow.

What would be your ideal startup if you had no limits of time and resources?

You say: devise a startup that would be interesting to work on. However, it is not devised in a moment. We launch something all the time, make experiments. There are failures and successes. Sometimes we waste money, sometimes we make successful investments. If I had an idea of ideal startup, I would be fully involved in its implementation.

In entrepreneurial business, ideas often emerge spontaneously. Therefore, I cannot tell you what I will be engaged in in future. The main thing here is an impetus. For instance, I have never opened photoshop. Nevertheless, it will not stop me from creating the best photoshop in browser in the world.

Business for me is rather a thing of intuition, even if it sounds trivial and like a cliche. You will not find information how to start business in business literature. It’s a bluff. In fact, such literature is business itself, as someone who writes it makes money on it. As a matter of principle, I don’t read a lot of business books, in order to stay unbiased. I read just the most necessary literature, which helps not to look as an idiot. We have so many versions of the Art to Win that there’s no enough time in one life to read all of them. After Steve Jobs’s death I read his biography, written by Walter Isaacson. I remember the moment when farther tells his son: Sit down into the car. Let’s go to see how business is built. You won’t read about it in any book. I am waiting for a signal, whatever crazy it may sound. And I will go towards the direction that this signal sounds from. And the project will either succeed or not. That’s because my life, like everybody else’s, is based on the principle of probability theory. There are some moments in life, when you flip a coin ten times in a row and it comes up tails each time. Of course, tomorrow I can be unlucky with great probability. But today we have a period of tails.