The top 100 richest Ukrainians list includes several newcomers from the IT industry, whose fortunes amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Who’s in top 100 richest Ukrainians from the IT industry

• Dmytro Zaporozhets, a founder of GitLab, came in at No. 30 of the ranking. His fortune was estimated at $560 million. In 2019, GitLab raised $268 million in Series E funding round. The company was evaluated at $2.7 billion and attracted $426 million in total.
• Vladyslav Yatsenko, a co-founder of Revolut, a financial service for travelers, which operates as an online bank, is at No. 27. According to Forbes, he owns $300 million. In February 2020, Revolut raised $500 million in new funding round and was evaluated at $6 billion.
• Oleg Roginsky was ranked 33rd with $270 million. He is the founder of the American sales startup People.ai. In 2019, it raised about $100 million in investments and was evaluated at $500 million.
• 35th, 36th, and 37th positions were taken by Alex Shevchenko, Max Lytvyn, and Dmytro Lider – the founders of the Grammarly, an online grammar checking service. According to Forbes, their fortune amounts to $250 million. In 2019, Grammarly raised $90 million at a valuation of $1 billion and became a unicorn.
• The ranking also included founders of IT company SoftServe, Taras Kytsmey (No. 68, $120 million), and Yaroslav Lyubinets (No. 98, $95 million).

Grammarly Case

Forbes estimated the Grammarly founders’ fortune based on the company’s valuation of $1 billion and the fact that each of the founders has 25% of the business.

In fact, Grammarly has never mentioned that its valuation is $1 billion. In all the pieces, the company reported the valuation of “over $1 billion.” The authoritative PitchBook service recently reported a real estimate of the Grammarly business of $2.3 billion. AIN.UA contacted Grammarly, and the company did not confirm or deny the valuation reported by PitchBook. Besides, the U.S. Forbes also writes about the evaluation of $2.3 billion, and there were no denials after the article was published.

Moreover, according to AIN.UA, the three founders have 76%, not 75% left. Thus, each of the founders of Grammarly has about $582.6 million. With this fortune, they could be at No. 13-14-15 in the list of the richest Ukrainians.

Update: after the publication of the piece, AIN.UA received a comment from Grammarly that the information in PitchBook is incorrect. Here is the full comment of the company:

Grammarly, as a private company, has the right not to disclose the company’s value, its owners, and the distribution of shares.
As for the estimate of the PitchBook service to which the publication refers, we do not publicly disclose the evaluation of our company, but we can say that the data on this resource is incorrect.
Also, we would like to note that the composition of the owners of our company is different from that of the founders. We emphasize that the estimates made by the editorial staff to assess the fortune of our founders are also incorrect.

Grammarly, as a private company, has the right not to disclose the company’s value, its owners, and the distribution of shares.

Regarding the evaluation reported by PitchBook, to which the site refers, we can say that we do not publicly disclose the evaluation of our company, but that figure is incorrect.

Also, we would like to note that the composition of the owners of our company is different from that of the founders. We emphasize that the estimates made by the editorial staff to assess the fortune of our founders are also incorrect.

AIN.UA trusts PitchBook as one of the most popular and authoritative services in the world for providing financial information, including ones about private companies. The American Forbes Magazine also trusts the service, which also used the PitchBook evaluation in its latest article about the company. The piece, published on April 22, is listed with an estimated value of $2.3 billion, and there is no rebuttal of the assessment in it.

Top 10 Richest Ukrainians

The first 10 positions in the overall top 100 richest Ukrainians are occupied by:

1. Rinat Akhmetov – $2.8 billion;
2. Viktor Pinchuk – $1.4 billion;
3. Petro Poroshenko – $1.4 billion;
4. Oleksandr Gerega and Galyna Gerega – $1.3 billion;
5. Gennadii Bogoliubov – $1.2 billion;
6. Yurii Kosiuk – $1.1 billion;
7. Kostyantin Zhevago – $1.1 billion;
8. Igor Kolomoiskyi – $1 billion;
9. Vadym Novinskyi – $810 million;
10. Oleksandr Yaroslavskyi – $725 million.

Who else is in the ranking

• Stepan Chernovetskiy, the Head of Chernovetskyi Investment Group, came in at No. 21 with $390 million. In April 2020, the firm led the Series A funding round of Zakaz.ua.
• Vladyslav Chechotkin and Iryna Chechotkina keep their spot as No. 22 with a $380 million fortune. Their main asset is Rozetka;
• No.34 – Vasyl Khmelnytskyi with $255 million and the main asset UFuture Investment Group;
• No. 62 – Viktor Polishchuk – $130 million. Main asset: Eldorado;
• No.95 – Volodumyr Popereshniuk, Viacheslav Klimov – $100 million each. Main asset: Nova Poshta.

The top 10 billionaires are in the list:

1. Jeff Bezos (US), the founder of Amazon, is ranked first for the third year in a row. His wealth is estimated at $113 billion;
2. Bill Gates (US), the co-founder of Microsoft, goes second in the list. He is worth $98 billion;
3. Bernard Arnault and his family are ranked No. 3. He is a French magnate, Chairman and CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton, the world’s leading luxury products group, with a $76 billion fortune. They are ahead of Warren Buffet for the first time this year;
4. Warren Buffett (US) who runs Berkshire Hathaway, was ranked No. 4 with a net worth of $67.5 billion;
5. Fifth on the list is Larry Allison (US), founder of Oracle, with a net worth of $59 billion;
6. Amancio Ortega (Spain), the founder of Inditex, is number six with a net worth of $55.1 billion;
7. Mark Zuckerberg (US), co-founder and CEO of Facebook, lost $7.6 billion last year, and he is at No. 7 with $54.7 billion;
8. Jim Walton (US) is the youngest son of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart. Currently, he owns almost half of Walmart shares and has a fortune of $54.6 billion.
9. Alice Walton (US) is No. 9 on the list with a net worth of $54.4 billion. She is the only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton;
10. Rob Walton (US), the elder son of Walmart founder Sam Walton, concludes the top ten. His fortune is $54.1 billion.

In 2020, Forbes list includes six dollar billionaires among Ukrainians.

• Rinat Akhmetov remains the richest Ukrainian with a net worth of $2.4 billion. This year he lost 600 positions and dropped to 875th place in the ranking.
• Victor Pinchuk, the founder of EastOne, is ranked No. 1,670 and is worth 1.3 billion.
• PrivatBank Group members Hennadii Boholyubov with $1.2 billion (No. 1,816) and Ihor Kolomoyskyy with $1 billion (No. 2,105) are also included to the list.
• Yuriy Kosiuk heads MHP, Ukraine’s biggest producer of poultry, is ranked No. 1,966 with a net worth of 1.1 billion.
• The founder of Ferrexpo, Konstantin Zhevago, with $1 billion is ranked No. 1,991.

Vadim Novinsky, the founder of Smart-Holding, dropped out of the list, whose net worth, according to the magazine’s calculations, did not reach $1 billion this year.

Technology category:

• Stas Matviyenko (28) and Anna Polishchuk (29) – cofounders of Allset, food pre-order service. Currently, the company has 2,500 connected restaurants in the U.S. and about $16 million in investments.
• Victoria Repa (27) is a cofounder and CEO of BetterMe, health and fitness apps that have over 50 million installs and about 400,000 paying subscribers.

Entertainment category:

• Rapper alyona alyona (28). The magazine writes that she introduces Ukrainian rap to the world, and also mentions her tours all over Europe and success in the local market.

• While working on the list, Forbes assessed the growth of companies’ revenues, profitability, staff expansion, customer pool, funding, and valuation. Besides, the magazine learned in detail how companies use artificial intelligence in their work.
• People.ai was ranked 18th. Among the leaders are Nuro (delivery of goods by unmanned vehicles), Aurora Innovation (system for self-propelled vehicles), and Uptake (analytical system for production control).
• This May, People.ai raised $60 million at $500 million valuation. The startup is developing an AI platform for employees of companies that interact directly with clients. People.ai now has more than 50 corporate clients and employs 145 people.

License issue

Boris Lozhkin, the founder of UMH, received the right to publish Forbes Ukraine in 2009, and in March 2011 the first issue was released. Previously, Forbes wrote that Lozhkin planned to purchase the magazine back in 2002, but the real negotiations began only in 2008.

In 2013, Lozhkin sold UMH, which also included the Forbes magazine, to a runaway oligarch Sergey Kurchenko. In the same year, 13 members of the editorial staff resigned, and the chief editor, Vladimir Fedorin, left too. They all said that there were pressure and censorship.

In 2014, Forbes Inc. decided to revoke the license from the local Forbes but faced the resistance of local management. This was the cause of long-term confrontation and litigation. Forbes Ukraine insisted that the license was extended until 2018 and they would not give it back, as there was no censorship in the media outlet. The Americans had their own opinion and they tried banning the use of the brand in Ukraine in every possible way.

As a result, the last issue of Forbes Ukraine saw the light in 2017, with a website working for some time after that (it stopped being updated in the middle of 2017). According to AIN.UA’s own sources, the reason for stopping the work of Forbes Ukraine was the financial problems of the publisher – UMH. Most of the team moved to the new business outlet – Mind.ua

The license of Forbes Ukraine, eventually, ended as it was supposed earlier – in the summer of 2018. A few months before, Americans began looking for new publishers.

Finding a publisher

US representatives of Forbes Inc. were on the lookout for anyone who was ready to take on the new Forbes Ukraine. First of all, it was about people who could financially capable of “pulling off” the operation of the media outlet.

According to AIN.UA, the Americans were negotiating with one of the largest publishing houses in Ukraine, which already produces a number of glossy magazines. Nobody knows why it didn’t work out.

Forbes also offered it to a number of Ukrainian entrepreneurs who are not affiliated with the government. The reason for the refusal was the financial side of the issue: magazine’s upkeep requires a large and expensive team.

According to the most modest estimates of AIN.UA, the financial side was from $30,000 to $50,000 per month only to maintain a team (about $400,000 – $500,000 per year). The price tag for the license, according to AIN.UA, is an additional $100,000. There were no people willing to part with such a sum for the franchise – it was just too expensive.

The foreigners

Another option was to look for a publisher abroad. And the new publisher was found -Barecz & Conrad Media with licenses to publish Forbes in four other countries. According to a source close to the subject matter, having the experience, the company plans to start publishing in Ukraine, taking into account the mistakes of the past.

Barecz & Conrad Media representatives didn’t respond to AIN.UA inquiry.

At the moment, Forbes Ukraine already has an editor-in-chief; it took several months to find one. It is a well-known media manager whose name has not yet been disclosed. Currently, the company is hiring team members. It can take up to six months to prepare for the launch.

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In the old days, the Forbes team worked on a daily update of their website, the monthly magazine Forbes Ukraine, as well as special issues of Forbes Woman and Forbes Lifestyle. It is still not known what format and shape will the new magazine take.

Prepared and written by Ilya Boshnyakov and Ilya Kabachynskyi.