Photo: The authors of the podcast “Closed the Round!” told about the most interesting cases of the fifth season (screenshot of the video) Author: Alexander Moroz
The technology podcast “Closed Round”, whose partner is the IT company FAVBET Tech, has reached the middle of the fifth season. Behind us are 26 episodes and dozens of hours of conversations about investments, startups and technologies, as well as a review of popular culture phenomena and interviews with people who are changing the Ukrainian technology market. We recall the most popular and most resonant of them.
RBC-Ukraine reports this with reference to a message from the podcast authors.
The first episodes of the season began with deep case studies of global and Ukrainian companies and iconic figures: how Sam Altman turned OpenAI into a commercial phenomenon, why startups vitally need creativity (Igor Finashkin from I AM IDEA tells us), and what happens when tech giants like Google become too influential.
Next, the hosts of “Zakryl Round” analyzed in detail how the largest venture fund Softbank “drained” 100 billion dollars, how Victoria Tigipko created a successful investment portfolio TA Ventures, and also talked about Peter Thiel's influence on the American elections and the phenomenon of the popularity of vertical micro-series of Ukrainian production.
Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov on the podcast “Closed the Round”
One of the most popular episodes of the season was an exclusive with Mykhailo Fedorov, Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, who shared details of the work of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the development of the “Diia” project and his own secrets of productivity. No less actively, viewers watched episodes about startup niches according to Y Combinator, investment strategies of Andriy Fedoriv, as well as about the success of a neobank for cryptocurrencies and the case of Stripe – the most expensive fintech in the world.
“In the fifth season, we decided to talk not only about traditional technology projects, such as SoftBank, or investments in the industry, but also about how the technological world influences classic industries, for example, the creation of vertical series or how social networks made Formula 1 popular again. It is very interesting to understand this,” says co-author Ilya Kabachinsky.
The latest episodes were dedicated to the hottest technology news and trends: a major deal on the acquisition of Uklon and Tabletki.ua by Kyivstar, the phenomenon of the Chinese AI giant DeepSeek, as well as the influence of popular podcasters on US politics (“How Joe Rogan and podcasters brought Trump to power”). In addition, we talked to Alna Mysko about the success of the Ukrainian startup Fuelfinance and with the former president of Kyivstar Petro Chernyshev about his approach to technology investments.
“In the new season, we started inviting guests who talk about niches, for example, how payments work. It turned out that the audience is interested in this, the views are large, and most importantly, organic,” adds the podcast co-author Anton Poleskov.
Anton Poleskov and Ilya Kabachinsky convince that viewers can expect even more interesting guests and unexpected topics.
“We already have so many guests ahead of us, our editor is already working even on weekends. It seems that we haven't even reached 3% of those we can invite,” the hosts say.
A permanent partner of the podcast is an IT company with Ukrainian DNA FAVBET Tech, a developer of solutions for the entertainment industry and an active participant in the technological community of Ukraine. The company is a resident of Diya.City, and is a member of the Association “IT Ukraine”. FAVBET Tech is among the top 50 product IT companies in Ukraine.
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