Credit Agricole has traditionally supported CEO Talks as partner bank

Recently Credit Agricole has once again opened its digital space for the sixth CEO Talks in partnership with Diia.City Union – the traditional meeting uniting Diia.City residents, tech company founders, investors and IT industry leaders.

This time, the keynote speaker at the event was Valerii Krasovskyi, CEO of Sigma Software Group, General Partner of SID Venture Partners and Board Member of Diia.City Union.

Sigma Software Group today is a global company employing over 2000 experts in more than 20 countries worldwide: in Europe, Latin America, the USA, Canada, the Middle East. The company brand encompasses education platform, corporate venture wing, defence solutions, charitable foundation and an in-house line of innovative products. And it all began with five enthusiasts from Kharkiv back in 2002.

Up until 2014, the company had only two offices – in Kharkiv and Odesa, and with time, it has rapidly expanded its locations. The speaker shared that the secret to their success lies in process decentralization, trusting the team, flexibility and strong culture of mutual support.

Due to the global trends in ІТ, the US markets remain the most attractive for the company thanks to the swift decision-making process and being open-minded towards new technologies. Valerii Krasovskyi considers the Middle East countries just as promising, as their governments readily invest in start-ups and offer favourable tax conditions, striving to become tech hubs. Latin America, namely Brazil, is also gaining momentum not only thanks to the large domestic market, but also to the growing interest of foreign investors.

The subject of the Ukrainian IT industry was also broached at the event, it is characterized by Valerii as having its own unique DNA:

“Ukrainian IT pros possess great expertise, they are not used to blindly following orders. If they disagree with some solutions, they speak about it openly and offer their own vision for solving the problem. It is not always a positive, but at the same time this feature can help avoid decisions that may be too costly for a company.”

The discussion also touched upon investments by SID Venture Partners venture fund. The fund was co-founded by Sigma Software, Ideasoft and Datrics with the idea for the Ukrainians to invest in Ukrainian products. Having been launched about a month before the full-scale invasion, SID Venture Partners have invested in 32 companies in 3 years, among others in the famous Liki24. The speaker recommends paying attention not only to revenue in the early stages, but also to the team, its flexibility, capacity to adapt to change and work on various projects. Now the fund also offers syndicate investing.

Discussion topics also included defence industry growth and options for investing in defence. In April of 2024, in cooperation with KSE, Buntar Aerospace, and ІТ industry leaders, with the support of the Ministry of Defence, the first private accelerator of defence technologies – Defence Builder – was created in Ukraine. Now, for the first time in our country, private investors can make investments in defence start-ups on a level playing field with professionals.

As is traditional for CEO Talks, we also learned about values at the corner stone of the company corporate culture. Core values for Sigma Software are humanity and responsibility, which have become even more pronounced since February 24, 2022. As the war broke out, the company relocated over 3500 professionals and their families, including those with other IT companies from Kharkiv and other dangerous regions. The process was made possible thanks to systemic preparation and support from the team that kept in touch 24/7, monitored the situation, coordinated logistics.

The final discussions circled around the issue of preserving the balance and energy in a fast-paced environment.

“One can hardly get tired from a job that is also one’s hobby”, says Valerii Krasovskyi. However, it is not only business that energizes him. The true source of energy for the СЕО of Sigma Software Group remains people, sport (running in particular) and cooking.

We are grateful to the speaker for the frank conversation and inspiring ideas! We keep supporting similar events to encourage the next generation of tech leaders.