KYIV

Ukraine’s online marketplace Rozetka is considering an initial public offering (IPO) to expand its operations in the ex-Soviet country.

“Rozetka’s ambition is to occupy 10 percent of Ukraine’s retail turnover, which now amounts to about $6-8 billion and fulfil it for a long time,” said Vladislav Chechotkin, the company co-founder.

He did not rule out other development options.

“IPO is just one of the possible ways, not the most usual way for Ukraine, but we need to prepare for this,” he said during the discussion “Ukraine and the World 2022”, organised by the NV media holding.

Chechotkin said that after a minority co-owner, a fund managed by Horizon Capital, appeared in the company in 2015, Rozetka is annually audited by one of the Big Four companies.

“We are building processes and business, which in the future we can present for public offering,” said the co-owner of the company.

Chechotkin predicted an increase in the share of online commerce to 25 percent, which should realise a market share of 50-60 percent within three to five years.

The volume of the e-commerce market in Ukraine in 2020 grew by 41 percent compared to 2019 and reached $4 billion, which is 8.8 percent of the total retail trade, according to a study by Soul Partners, Baker Tilly Ukraine and Aequo supported by USAID.

The largest marketplaces in Ukraine, in addition to Rozetka, according to the research, include Prom, Allo, Bigl and Epicenter.

Rozetka was founded in 2005 in Kyiv by Vladislav and Irina Chechotkin as an online store of electronics and household appliances. The owner of the company is the Cypriot company Temania Enterprises Limited. In the following years, the company has transformed into a multi-category online marketplace, the largest in Ukraine. In 2020, Rozetka announced its entry into the Moldovan market, in 2021 – in Uzbekistan.