• Searches are being carried out by the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor’s Office, the Main Investigative Department of the National Police, and operatives.
• According to Kosovan, the company provided all the necessary documents to the investigators before the search. So, he believes that in this case the searches had to be an optional measure. Kosovan also published a photo of a computer system unit box with the caption: “Investments have been packed”. That equipment is probably being seized from the company during investigative actions.

• Such investigations are related to the land property that MacPaw acquired between 2016 and 2021. According to the entrepreneur, some officials are now trying to take this asset from the company.

“We do not rule out that due to imperfections in the land legislation and its outdated regulation, some mistakes could have been made by the officials. Therefore, we provided the law enforcement officers with all the requested information and have been in dialogue with the local authorities for more than three years in order to correct these mistakes and be able to create a really interesting and valuable project in Ukraine. But after we invested tens of millions of dollars in the development of the plots, officials became interested in them, and now they are trying to take away these lands and assets,”

Kosovan writes.

• The entrepreneur clarified that it is about such land plots
  • 3223388200:02:015:0105;
  • 3223388200:02:015:0108,
  • 3223388200:02:015:0009;
  • 3223388200:02:015:0136;
  • 3223388200:02:015:0094;
  • 3223388200:02:015:0107;
  • 3223388200:02:015:0030;
  • 3223388200:02:015:0106;
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  • 3223388200:02:015:0095 and adjacent to them.

• If you look at the online map of the State Geocadastre, these are considered agricultural lands of the Boryspil and Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi districts of the Kyiv region of the Tsyblivka rural territorial community. If you compare the geography of the areas on the map, the MacPaw Village employee recreation base is located in this area:

• The MacPaw company is a resident of the special legal regime Diia City.

• The funds will go to revitalize buildings A, B, and B1. There are plans to create a business support center, offices of innovative companies, a large co-working space, reading promotion center, a food market, and an art center there.
• The project will be implemented in stages, considering what is a priority in war conditions. The project’s representatives say that it is planned to create 3,500 jobs on the territory of the innovation center, as well as a hotel and co-living hostel for teams and specialists.
• MacPaw has been supporting Promprylad since 2019. With the new round of funding, the company has increased the total amount of its investment in the project to $1.5 million.
• On the eve of Russia’s full-scale military invasion, part of the MacPaw team moved to Ivano-Frankivsk and continued working in the Promprylad co-working space.

“During the war, Promprylad became a refuge for teams of Ukrainian companies that were forced to move due to difficult conditions. I believe in the potential and mission of the project. ‘Make an impact’ is one of MacPaw’s core values and Promprylad.Renovation changes not only the region but also influences the development of the entire country. Together, we want to create the conditions for talented and creative people to stay in Ukraine and for companies to resume their activities and strengthen the economic front. This project will help rebuild the country’s economy faster and build the Ukraine of the future,” says Oleksandr Kosovan, founder & CEO at MacPaw.

“MacPaw has been our strategic partner since the beginning of the project’s development. The company supported us with a very important funding both during the plant buyout phase and now — during the war. It is also important for us that MacPaw is an example of a new Ukrainian company with a highly intelligent product conquering global markets. It is exactly the kind of company that is already starting to be born and, hopefully, will grow to such success in the Promprylad.Renovation ecosystem,” shares Yuriy Fylyuk, CEO of Promprylad.Renovation.

About Promprylad.Renovation

Promprylad.Renovation is an innovation center of 38,205 m² on the premises of an old plant in Ivano-Frankivsk. It focuses on four areas of regional development: new economy, urbanism, contemporary art, and informal education. There are resident companies, a co-working space, a contemporary art gallery, an urban laboratory, a dance school, as well as events and conferences held on the territory of the plant.

Promprylad is an example of impact investing that means that investors invest money in a social project, become its co-owners, and get dividends. According to the center’s representatives, the project has raised $12,5 million from 1,186 private investors and companies from Ukraine and other countries. As of May 26, there is still $2,5 million left to raise.

The Innovation Center team says the project’s goal is “to create conditions and opportunities for Ukrainian companies, entrepreneurs, and professionals from various sectors to stay and work in Ukraine, and thus support the country’s economy during the war and it recovery after the victory.”

About MacPaw

MacPaw is a Ukrainian product company that creates and distributes software for macOS and iOS. Among its products are CleanMyMac X, Setapp, The Unarchiver, etc. MacPaw has over 30 million users.

• The new Menu App functionality aims to increase the longevity of a Mac by adding five detailed monitors.
• The five new monitors provide detailed information about the state of Mac’s storage, protection, CPU, RAM, and battery.
• These updates will give users general information about Mac’s health, pressure, temperature, and consumption processes.
• The new functionality will be available to all users, including the trial version. Everyone running macOS 10.10 and higher can join the beta-testing in the app and provide feedback by clicking the Provide Feedback button in the app.

“Despite the horrible war in our home country Ukraine, MacPaw remains stable as a business and continues active product development, creating value for our users,” says Oleksandr Kosovan, CEO of MacPaw, “This release brings major updates to the CleanMyMac X App Menu, making the maintenance of Mac’s health even easier and smoother. The new functionality is available for all users, no matter whether they have a premium subscription or not. During this beta release, we are eager to get customers’ feedback. It will help us a lot in delivering the best possible value in the public release.”

Key Features

• Protection monitoring gives quick ideas on how to protect a Mac computer from malware and threats.
• Storage and hard drive monitoring help keep track of the available storage, temperature, types of data stored on a drive, and size of trash that users can clean immediately.
• Aside from keeping an eye on the load of the CPU, users can now see the top-consuming apps, the uptime of the system and watch for unusual activity spikes.
• RAM monitoring gives information about what is happening with the computer’s RAM, RAM-consuming apps, and whether it is okay to keep pushing it further.
• Battery monitoring helps to check the number of charge cycles, the overall battery health, and how much time it would take till the battery is fully charged.

How to test the updated Menu app in CleanMyMac X

1. Download CleanMyMac X here.
2. Launch the application.
3. Go to Preferences in the Menu Bar or hit Command+, on your keyboard.
4. Check Offer to update to Beta versions
5. Click Check for updates
6. Test the new functionality and share your feedback by going to Help → Provide Feedback in the Menu bar.

About CleanMyMac X by MacPaw

• CleanMyMac is an advanced clean-up app designed to power up and protect Macs.
• Developed by software powerhouse MacPaw, the app has been downloaded more than 20 million times, helping users keep their machines in optimum condition for the past 14 years.
• MacPaw is a software company with a headquarters in Kyiv, Ukraine, that develops and distributes software for macOS and iOS. MacPaw is a developer of such apps as CleanMyMac X and Setapp.
• Today, MacPaw has more than ten software products with over 30 million users worldwide.
• Every fifth Mac on Earth has at least one app by MacPaw.

This and all photos in the article by Oleksandr Kozachenko.

MacPaw’s office is located in the Toronto Business Center, Kyiv. The company moved here in July 2014 and occupied a tiny space on the fifth floor. With the team growing, the office space was enlarging too. In 2016, the company opened a new part of the office. In 2019, it added space on the second floor that used to belong to the Setapp team.

Now, the total space is already 11,000 sq ft. The Ukrainian Baraban Design Studio worked on the design of the MacPaw office. The old part has mostly complementary colors, while the part on the secind floor has a more minimalist design and is full of light tones. 

Working Space

“MacPaw’s team is generally working in the open space. There are separate offices only for legal and accounting people due to the specifics of their work,” says the company’s representative.

MacPaw’s employees are using Apple devices, and depending on their role, they get either MacBook or MacBook Pro. One can request additional screens, mice, keyboards, or drawers. Everybody has the same armchairs with a lifelong warranty. All desks have an adjustable height. As a rule, all furniture is produced in Italy.

There are plenty of meeting rooms that could be booked on Google Calendar by any worker: ten big ones and twelve small ones. Moreover, there are transformable meeting rooms that could be turned into the conference room.

Additionally, there are a few meeting rooms with futuristic glass that can interchange between transparency and an opaque state. In each meeting room, the employees can draw on the walls, use different charges, and utilize smart conferencing tools SOVA.

There is a nice spacious terrace overlooking the city on the 5th floor where employees can work or take their meals. There used to be summer parties and barbecues before the lockdown. And even though all events have a smaller scale now, there are still parties for rookies each quartal so that they can get to know the whole team.

There is an exhibition of vintage Mac computers in the older part of the office opened in 2017. AIN.UA was there and made a detailed photo essay. 

MacPaw has a spacious gym where professional coaches run classes. One of them is also a health and nutrition expert. There are groups for karate, stretching, and yoga. You can work out on your own at any time – the gym has enough exercise equipment for that, and there is a punching bag. There are men’s and women’s locker rooms and showers near the gym. During the quarantine period, the company organized online workouts. For those who want to work and work out simultaneously, MacPaw has a desk with a treadmill.

The office has a library with books available for ordering through the office manager. Also, there are meditation rooms (where employees can sleep), a massage chair, and a projector for presentations and movie nights. In the kitchen, the employees can have a coffee or tea, eat some granola or cereals. Seasonal fruit is provided for the entire team on Tuesdays. There is a wine cabinet.

Interestingly, MacPaw has its internal “currency” called Fixes. It was named after Fixel, one of two cats living in the office. The other cat is called Hoover. Cats are wandering around the office during the daytime, and the last leaving employee closes them in the special room.  

Five Fixes are equal to ten US Dollars. Each employee gets one Fix at the end of the week. Additionally, one can get more Fixes for helping co-workers. Fixes can be spent in special Fix-machines with snacks or could be changed for some Apple products or subscriptions in the AppStore. During the lockdown, the currency was circulating online.

How to get a job at MacPaw

According to the company’s policy, there are technical and value-based stages of applicants’ selection. It all starts with a screening call. Then applicants are invited to do the test task in the office. The successful ones are sent for the interview at the technical department. It is worth mentioning that the selection process can take up to two or, in some cases, up to six months. 

For the first three months, newcomers are supervised by buddies, other company employees who are responsible for their social integration. The probation period is three months. But there are some cases when it is extended. At the time of the publication of this photo essay, MacPaw was looking for both technical and non-technical specialists like QA, macOS/iOS, Front-End developers, product designers, recruiters, affiliate managers, and PR specialists.  

There are also internships available at MacPaw. The company has got 60 interns for the last five years. And 25 of them are now MacPaw’s team members. Meanwhile, 69 employees have worked as mentors for them, and nine of them are ex-interns. In summer 2021, the team is hosting 21 interns in 13 different roles. 

MacPaw’s core values are passion, people, honesty, quality, continuous improvement, design. According to the company’s representatives, they are now working on a new, more concise formulation of the values that would still contain the core of it.

Working Conditions

MacPaw employees are provided with additional benefits including:

• a full medical insurance package
• English classes
• a separate budget for self-improvement
• a recovery paid leave in case of the employee’s burn-out
• a sabbatical, one and half months paid leave for the employees who have worked for more than five years in the company
• a year and a half maternity leave for women and two weeks leave for men who become fathers
• two-day hackathons are happening every six months where people can work on their own projects and solutions
• a pets-friendly office

What lockdown has changed

In March 2020, MacPaw moved all employees to a remote working model. To work more comfortably, people could take all the equipment they needed including computers and armchairs.  

After a year since the pandemic started, the company is operating in a mixed-mode. People can come to the office upon the need or their will. The communication is done through Gmail and Slack. Once a month, MacPaw organizes meetings with C-levels.

According to the company’s statement, they are still growing and due to the possible lack of working spaces decided to cancel the system of fixed working desks.

Ever since the Covid-19, there have been hand sanitizers, thermometers for self-checking, gloves, and masks. Additionally, MacPaw has defibrillators. There are special pieces of training done for the employees to learn how to use them in case of emergency.

As a response to the pandemic, there is a special supporting podcast “Mental Health Теревені” (Mental Health Talks) dedicated to the trendy topics of burnout, distance work, socialization, etc.

MacPaw Space

In 2021, MacPaw announced the opening of the MacPaw Space, a creative space with an Apple devices museum. The total space would be 3540 sq ft. AIN.UA has a  detailed story on it. During a guided tour around the office, we could see the whole of the future Space. 

The London-based office of the international advertising agency Droga5 worked on the creation of the video. In its story, a man with herpetophobia (fear of reptiles) was hypnotized into thinking he had become a snake and was left in a snake-like state.

“With Setapp, you have all the apps you need to finish any task, without the distraction of having to look for them. Our films showed the absurdly dramatic consequences of people getting distracted mid-task, failing to finish what they started,” reads the description of the video.

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is a festival of advertising producers that annually awards bronze, silver, and gold lions for excellence in advertising creativity.

About Setapp

Setapp is a subscription-based macOS app service launched by MacPaw in 2017. For $10 per month, the user gets access to 150 applications.

iOS apps in Setapp

The list includes popular Setapp applications, among them are:

Most likely, the list of applications will be expanded.

How it works

• To use the Setapp apps, you have to register your iPhone or iPad. You can do it in the “My Devices” section.
• For each extra device, customers will have to pay an additional $4.99/month.

• The minimum system requirement for iOS devices (iPhone or iPad) is iOS 10.3 or newer. The iOS version will also be available during a free trial week.
• After adding a new device, you must open Setapp on macOS and select “Available on iOS” from the menu on the left.
• In the list of available applications, select the app you want to install and click on “iOS application.” A QR code will appear on the screen and you have to scan it using your iPhone or iPad.
• Then the AppStore opens, where you can install the application.

• As a result of successful installation and activation, you will receive a notification on your macOS device.

It is noteworthy that mobile applications are not available to team subscription users. The Setapp team has specified that it is working on improving this tariff plan.

About Setapp

Setapp is a subscription-based macOS application service launched in 2017. For $9.99/month, the user gets access to 190 applications. All application updates in Setapp are free.

“Today, we’re excited to provide the option for people to use their favorite applications on their mobile devices wherever they are. We are confident that this will open up new opportunities for productivity improvement and task fulfillment,” Oleksandr Kosovan, founder and CEO of Setapp, commented on the launch of iOS versions.

This is the second SaaS Award for the project. In 2018, the Setapp received the award in the “Best New SaaS Product” category.

About the Award

The SaaS Award has been held since 2011 and selects the best cloud products from around the world, regardless of the area and size of the business.

The judges include experts from technology, business, academia, and marketing fields. Among other winners, there are products from IBM, Intuit, and ThousandEyes.

What does Setapp do?

Setapp is a subscription macOS application service launched in 2017. For $10 per month, a user gets access to 150 programs.

Currently, Setapp has over 40,000 paying users and annual revenue of over $4 million.

What else you need to know

Besides, the British platform for the sale of Paddle software has received the award in the category “Best SaaS Product for E-Commerce / Online Stores.” In 2017 it teamed up with the Ukrainian service DevMate, a sister project of MacPaw.

The full list of winners can be seen on the website of the award.

Arcade service will start work this fall and its cost is unknown. At the start, they promise a collection of more than 100 games that will be exclusives of the service. This means that they will not be available without a subscription to Arcade and will not receive ports on Android.

The bet on exclusives is not a novelty for the gaming business, but it was mainly a phenomenon of the PC and consoles market. Now Apple has adopted this tactic: the company will partially finance part of the projects, as well as work with indie developers to content Arcade.

Apple is concerned about the dominance of freemium-games on the App Store, as explained at the presentation. This model of monetization (free game + built-in purchases) makes it difficult for indie developers to succeed — they often rely on direct sales and cannot compete with projects of the Fortnite or Clash of Clans scale.

It should be noted that Apple itself just stands to benefit from such projects, the company receives 30% of all in-game transactions. To understand what amounts are in question, it is worth referring to the example of Fortnite. After launching on iOS in March 2018, by February 2019, the game earned more than $ 500 million — such an estimate is given by analysts from Sensor Tower. Consequently, Apple received about $ 150 million.

It is still unknown how the monetization of the new service will be organized: Apple has not disclosed what percentage of the proceeds will be distributed among the developers. What is known for sure: the games will be available without connecting to the network and they can be shared in the framework of “Family Access”. That is if the subscription to the service is activated by the head of the family, up to 5 people can use it.

Another key point is cross-platform. Apple announced that the games will be available on iOS, Mac, and Apple TV. At the same time, the service supports cloud synchronization of progress — you can start the game on one device and continue with the next one. This is another reference to Apple’s plans to make development for all platforms (from iOS to macOS and tvOS) a universal process.

However, while the complete list of available games is unknown. On the Apple site, only a few titles were allocated:

• Where Cards Fall by Snowman from The Game Band;
• Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm from the studio Cornfox & Bros .;
• Beyond a Steel Sky from Revolution Software;
• The Pathless from Annapurna Interactive and Giant Squid studios.

Technically, Arcade “settles” inside the App Store application, the service tab will replace the “Updates” section. The section filling will be handled by the Apple team of curators — there will be familiar features about developers and projects, passing tips and other interactive content.

What MacPaw does

Apple is not the first company which is going to sell monthly access to a collection of apps. For two years now, this business has been developed by the Ukrainian company MacPaw, best known for the CleanMyMac utility. In 2017, MacPaw launched Setapp, a Mac application store.

It works as a subscription ($9.99/month or $107.88/year) and currently provides access to more than 140 applications from 129 developers. There are family accounts – for $14.99 or $179.88/year and you can add an unlimited number of family members. In the future, the number of applications will be limited to 300 titles — as much is needed to cover all the needs of a Mac user. Now there are already 10 sections in the store: from tool developers to writing programs.

The projects have a different audience and content. Arcade is an entertainment service. Setapp is focused on increasing productivity and only on macOS. Arcade will sell new games that cannot be bought separately. Setapp collects existing expensive utilities and programs in one place, saving money on direct purchases.

But the projects are united by a business model: they sell applications by subscription, take part of the proceeds for themselves, and distribute the rest of the money among the developers.

This similarity is emphasized by the founder of MacPaw Alexander Kosovan in the comments for AIN.UA:

“By launching Arcade, Apple has created a service that, with its business model, is similar to the product MacPaw has been working on for several years.

In Arcade, users get access to mobile games selected by the Apple team for a monthly fee, just as Setapp users get access to applications for macOS.

Setapp’s vision is the optimization of the Mac App Store by solving its problems: an abundance of poor-quality applications, a difficult process of finding the right applications for specific tasks and unpleasant surprises in the form of advertising or additional in-app purchases. Setapp users have instant access to really high-quality, carefully selected applications, without additional purchases or advertising. (Today, 149 applications from 129 developers are available in Setapp).

We specifically focused on Mac applications, because we believe that people should have more opportunities to be productive, paying attention to what is really important.”

Unlike Apple, Setapp revealed how subscription earnings are distributed. Most of the revenue is received by the developers. 70% of the funds are divided between them, depending on the intensity of their application. 20% are distributed to partner deductions — developers get these bonuses depending on the “value” of the users listed. And only 10% gets MacPaw.

Speculating on how Apple will make money is meaningless. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the company will subsidize the development of certain applications. However, the news service Apple News Plus, which gives 300 magazines access to the content for a single subscription of $ 9.99/month, has already been criticized for aggressive monetization — there Apple takes 50% of its revenue. Because of this, the New York Times and the Washington Post refused to cooperate.

Why is it important

In order to collect more than 100 applications, the MacPaw team spent a year. Apple’s resources allow them to announce such a number of games from the start. Setapp collected 20,000 paying users 1.5 years after launch. The number of Arcade subscribers will be in the millions. But projects are symmetrically changing the established market for applications through subscriptions: Ukrainians are competing with the Mac App Store, and Apple wants to bring indie developers to the light.

Although Ukrainians are two years ahead of Apple, now it is up to Americans — the success or failure of Arcade will show whether users are ready to switch to a service model in yet another area of consumption. It has already become the norm to subscribe to movies, TV shows, books, and music. Perhaps the appearance of games and applications in the list is a matter of the near future.