Vitalii Gorovyi has increased his stake in Linkup ST to 45%, and his InSoft.Partners has exited the portfolio company Rolique – details

Serial entrepreneur Vitalii Gorovyi has additionally invested in Linkup ST and withdrawn the company from the portfolio of his InSoft.Partners group of companies.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed, but now Gorovyi’s stake in Linkup ST has reached 45%, with the remaining 55% retained by the company’s founder and CEO Andriy Sambir. The serial entrepreneur told AIN about this.

Founded in 2013, Linkup ST positions itself as a full-service digital product development company with a focus on artificial intelligence, growth design, and marketing promotion. It currently employs about 100 people in Ukraine, Poland, and the United States. Most of the company’s clients are in the US and Western Europe.

“Andriy and I are equally crazy in a sense. We are used to working very hard and we are both enthusiastic about transforming Linkup ST into a digital transformation consulting business and significantly moving away from the concept of traditional outsourcing. On the one hand, we agreed on this ideology, and on the other hand, we have historically been quite comfortable working together. That is why we decided to enter into this strategic partnership.

It is important that this cooperation goes beyond the InSoft.Partners business model. In this case, we are not talking about a sprint with an exit at the end, but a marathon, during which we will build a new business together. That’s why I personally joined Linkup ST, and InSoft.Partners left,” says Gorovyi.

According to the updated strategy, the entrepreneur says that the company will have three main verticals: Digital Marketing, User Satisfaction, and UX, Business Automation. Gorovyi himself, he says, will continue to have two business lines: Linkup ST consulting with Sambir and InSoft.Partners, an investment company.

“I’ve never liked the concept of outstaffing in its purest form. So to speak, ‘slavery of the 21st century’. Now the market and the situation require us to change and build new business models. Given Linkup ST’s quadrupling in revenue over the past three years, the move to a closer partnership with Vitalii is logical and consistent.

Structural changes, such as building three isolated productions within the company, are an example of such changes. It is likely that Linkup ST will soon cease to be a classic outsourcing company,” commented Andriy Sambir, founder and CEO of Linkup ST.

Exit from Rolique

InSoft.Partners has also reached an agreement with Rolique to exit the company in favor of its founder Volodymyr Morozenko. InSoft.Partners has used the founders-led buyback strategy in its practice many times before: with Digis in 2024, Artjoker in 2023, and Cloudfresh in 2022.

The company agreed on milestones, bought a stake in the company, reached these milestones, and then, if the possibility of exit was postponed or views on further strategy began to differ, exited the business in favor of the founders.

Read more: “Any evaluation of a Ukrainian company is now either a myth or some wild numbers.” Vitalii Gorovyi transforms InSoft.Partners into a group of companies. Why do he and his business partners need it?

Both Gorovyi and Morozenko say that they remain on friendly terms and do not rule out the possibility of working together on new projects in the future.

Rolique was founded in 2014. The company currently employs about 100 people in Ukraine and Poland. InSoft.Partners invested in 15% of Rolique and had an option for another 5%.