Successful Ukrainian case: investment portfolio of Maksim Krippa

Leading countries developing global cybersport are China and the USA. Europe, along with Ukraine, is significantly behind. However, among the successful Ukrainian cases of creating an investment portfolio from assets related to cybersport, the work of Maksim Krippa, who has achieved significant success, stands out. His vertically integrated investment portfolio deserves close analysis. Let's understand how the optimally balanced portfolio of new industry assets was created.

Risks and starting work:

The cybersport market is relatively young. The industry itself originated in the 1980s, but only gained official status in 2010. In Ukraine, however, the development of cybersport was delayed due to low computerization and Internet inaccessibility. To give credit, the problems were solved quickly, and now Ukraine has good and cheap Internet, and everyone who is interested has computers. But at the dawn of cybersport, a lag of several decades seemed critical. That's why finding an investor willing to get involved was very difficult.

Maksim Krippa began working with the first cybersport assets in 2018 when a young startup Maincast approached him with a proposal. Four partners who founded a cybersport broadcasting studio in Kyiv literally begged Maksim Krippa to consider their offer. After two months of negotiations, the investor allocated funds and became a shareholder of the company.

This step can be considered the starting point in the formation of a vertically integrated portfolio. Here is an interesting nuance: investors who decide to form a portfolio on such a principle must deeply know the market. But how to study a market that practically doesn't exist? Moreover, how can an investor study a market if they only learned about it yesterday?

There are no answers to these two questions. Maksim Krippa is a non-public person and does not report his actions either on social pages or in interviews for journalists. Therefore, it is difficult to understand by what resources the analysis was conducted and what became the basis for further decisions.

But it should be noted that just six months after investing in Maincast, Maksim Krippa made a second move - he invested in the cybersport organization NAVI.

Vertically integrated portfolio:

Behind this cumbersome definition stands a simple basic principle: the portfolio should include assets of companies participating at different stages of product creation. Conventionally, an industry or segment is taken, its final product is determined, and companies involved in creating this final product are bought.

After investing in Maincast, Maksim Krippa realized that cybersport broadcasting studios need a product: tournaments, matches, etc. A logical second step for the investor is to buy content producers - the cybersport organization NAVI, consisting of several strongest teams in various disciplines.

However, acquiring such an asset as NAVI turned out to be complicated and lengthy. Starting as a majority owner in 2018, Maksim Krippa signed a new agreement in 2020. It was only fulfilled by 2022, when Maksim Krippa became the beneficial owner of NAVI.

Thus, his portfolio included cybersport teams and a company that broadcasts their matches. But that's not all. In 2023, Maksim Krippa became the owner of the computer game development company GSC Game World. Thus, his portfolio included assets that produce what is played, work with those who play, and interact with those who are interested in how they play.

Advantages of Maksim Krippa investment portfolio:

Creating a balanced portfolio is difficult but possible, and most importantly, promising. A vertically integrated portfolio opens up the following opportunities for the investor:

First: risk diversification and income stabilization

If a problem arises at some stage of production or with some asset, the loss can be compensated by other assets in the portfolio. This has already happened with Maksim Krippa investment portfolio: when at the beginning of the full-scale war, Maincast was left without sponsorship contracts, NAVI continued its work.

Second: high efficiency

Here, both process optimization and synergy effect work perfectly. One asset supports and complements the other, and together better results are achieved. An example from Maksim Krippa practice: the PGL Major Copenhagen tournament brought a championship to NAVI and record views to Maincast.

Third: quality control and innovation

Understanding the full cycle of service production and having the ability to influence at each stage, one can achieve maximum quality and introduce new unique developments. There is every reason to believe that Maksim Krippa experience with related assets will positively affect the new product of GSC Game World - the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2.