Ukraine’s Fintech-IT Group, the software developer behind Monobank, has become the country’s first financial technology (or fintech) “unicorn” after securing investment from the Ukraine-Moldova American Enterprise Fund (UMAEF).
The term “unicorn” refers to a privately owned start-up company valued at over $1 billion that is not listed on a stock exchange.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
The fund, which operates under a US congressional mandate, also led to a consortium of American private investors joining the round.
The funding, announced on Oct. 6, lifted the company’s valuation to $1 billion.
UMAEF’s president and CEO, Jaroslawa Z. Johnson, said the fund is backing a “local leader launched and grown by best-in-class Ukrainian founders.” She described the deal as a sign of confidence in the strength of Ukraine’s fintech sector and its technical talent.
UMAEF chairman Dennis A. Johnson added that investing during wartime “paves the way for US investors to invest in Ukraine’s future reconstruction, recovery, and renewal.”
The exact size of the investment was not disclosed, but Forbes Ukraine estimated it at between $18,55 million, valuing UMAEF’s stake at around 1.9% of Fintech-IT Group.
According to Scroll.media, the deal marks the first “unicorn” valuation for a Ukrainian fintech company since 2022 and is viewed locally as a signal that Western investors are regaining confidence in Ukraine’s tech sector amid the ongoing war.
Other Topics of Interest
Ukraine, Tariffs to Dominate White House Talks with Canadian PM Today
Mark Carney arrives in Washington under dual pressure to resolve steel and aluminium tariffs while Ottawa weighs crucial Tomahawk missile commitment to Kyiv.
Fintech-IT Group, founded by Oleg Gorokhovskyi and Mykhaylo Rogalskyi, unites several IT firms that build and maintain financial software, including FintechBand, Kilobyte1024, Shake-to-Pay, and ACDC Processing.
Forbes Ukraine reported that about 90% of the holding’s 2024 revenue – Hr. 3.7 billion ($89.6 million) – came from FintechBand, which supplies the core technology behind Universal Bank’s Monobank app.
Monobank, owned jointly by Universal Bank (controlled by Serhiy Tigipko) and Gorokhovskyi and Rogalskyi through Kilobyte1024, is Ukraine’s largest neobank with about 10 million customers.
UMAEF was established by the US Congress in 1994 and has over 30 years of experience investing in enterprises in Ukraine and Moldova. UMAEF is a Delaware-based corporation managed by experienced American business professionals, with an initial $150 million of funding provided by the US government.
As per Forbes Ukraine, the UMAEF investment was structured through a Cyprus-based holding company, Hallstatt, which holds shares in FintechBand.
The structure also involved several corporate transitions earlier this year. In April 2025, FintechBand’s ownership expanded to include Cyprus-based Crestline, later restructured into Hallstatt. The fund’s representatives reportedly joined Hallstatt’s board in August.
According to Forbes Ukraine, UMAEF’s involvement could encourage larger American investors to follow, possibly ahead of a future Initial Public Offering (IPO) on a US exchange. Both UMAEF and Universal Bank have signaled plans to seek listings abroad. Universal Bank, part of Tihipko’s TAC Group, is preparing for an IPO in 2026, according to the media outlet.
The cooperation between UMAEF and private US investors is seen as strategic for Ukraine’s recovery and integration into Western markets. UMAEF has longstanding ties with Horizon Capital, one of Ukraine’s leading private equity firms, which received $25 million from the fund for its first investment vehicle in 2006.
Some market sources cited by Forbes Ukraine speculated that the UMAEF investment may also help Fintech-IT Group safeguard its assets amid potential legal risks tied to past litigation over PrivatBank, where Fintech-IT founders Gorokhovskyi and Rogalskyi worked before its nationalization in 2016. However, Forbes stressed that this hypothesis remains unconfirmed.
The investment’s significance lies not only in its volume but in the fact that US government-backed money is entering one of Ukraine’s leading fintech companies, according to Forbes Ukraine.