The ex-chief of VKontakte social network and the co-founder of KupiKupon are eyeing to create an IT holding in Uzbekistan. Part of the VK and AliExpress Russia team, as well as former employees of Ozon and Yandex, joined the project.

Businessman Boris Dobrodeev, who headed Mail.ru Group (now VKontakte) from 2016 to 2021, told RBC about plans to create an IT holding in Uzbekistan. Jasur Djumaev, co-founder of the KupiKupon discount service, became his partner in the project. Dobrodeev became an adviser and received an options package for a holding called Uzum.

The ecosystem already includes the Uzum Market marketplace, the Uzum Nazia installment service, Uzum digital bank and Kapitalbank. The partners intend to launch a food and grocery delivery service soon. To do this, they plan to develop a network of dark stores across the country.

The main owner of the holding is registered in the UAE, Jumaev said. He did not disclose the shareholders and the distribution of roles, explaining that this was "related, among other things, to the fundraising stage." After its completion, most of the shares would be retained by Uzbek entrepreneurs. Uzum is also in talks with "the largest international investment funds from the Middle East" and intends to raise about $300 million by the end of 2023, he added. The partners did not rule out that in the next three years they will conduct an IPO on an international exchange or several exchanges.

To buy out a share of Kapitalbank and launch the Uzum Market, partners raised "several tens of millions of dollars" from Uzbek entrepreneurs who received a share in the equity of Uzum. The holding will contribute part of Kapitalbank's profits to the development of e-commerce. The partners do not disclose the size of their own investments in Uzum. Jumaev said that he invested in the project funds received from the sale of his IT assets in Russia. According to SPARK-Interfax, Jumaev was the owner of 50% of the Algorithm company, which Megafon bought at the end of 2022.

Uzum told RBC that part of the VKontakte and Aliexpress Russia teamы, as well as former employees of Ozon, Yandex, Delivery Club and other Russian IT companies, joined the project. According to Jumaev, more than 5,000 employees, including 500 developers, are working on the development of the ecosystem. About 80% of developers are Uzbeks. The company intends to hire more than 2,000 people by the end of 2023 and open its own developer academy.

In the spring of 2022, Dobrodeev in an interview told Forbes that he had left the position of CEO of USM Telecom, which he had held after leaving VKontakte, and intended to focus on his own projects. The businessman said that he wants to create an investment company and invest in fintech and e-commerce projects based in the CIS countries, primarily in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Dobrodeev noted that at the first stage he цфs ready to invest several tens of millions of dollars of his own savings in the company, and in about a year he intendув to вкфц additional investments from international investors, for example, from India or China.