Dragon Capital invests nearly $100 mln in Ukraine in 2025, plans further growth in 2026 – Fiala

Leading Ukrainian investment company Dragon Capital invested nearly $100 million in 2025, although not all of these investments were completed during the year, Dragon Capital founder Tomas Fiala said.

"We came close last year, in terms of the volume of new investments, to the prewar level, when it exceeded $100 million," he said during a discussion organized by the Center for Economic Strategy on Friday, dedicated to the key trends of the year for Ukraine's economy.

Fiala noted that during the first two years of the war, the company's priority was preserving the business, restoring it after the decline in 2022, and completing all capital investments that had been launched before the full-scale invasion.

"But the past two years have already been about expanding the business. You can no longer postpone decision-making 'until after the war' – it already takes too long to wait until after the war," the head of Dragon Capital explained.

"And this year we plan to do even more," he said.

Fiala said the growth plans are linked to the creation of two private equity funds – the Rebuild Ukraine Fund (REBUF) and the Amber Dragon Ukraine Infrastructure Fund I (jointly with the UK-based Amber Infrastructure), which the company has been actively working on over the past year and a half. The target size of these funds is $250 million and $350 million, respectively, with Dragon Capital committing $20 million to each.

The company's founder specified that the first closing of REBUF, totaling $102.5 million, took place on Friday, while the announcement of the first significant closing of the Amber Dragon Ukraine Infrastructure Fund I is expected next week.

Fiala also added that Dragon Capital, together with Amber Infrastructure, was selected as the winner of the competition to manage the EU Flagship Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine, with a declared size of EUR 220 million, among 12 applicants, four of whom advanced to the final stage.

According to him, Dragon Capital is ready to invest EUR 40 million of its own funds into this vehicle, while the other investors, as with the two previous funds, are five European international financial institutions (IFIs) and development financial institutions (DFIs).

"We are currently in the due diligence process… We plan to start investing it in the middle of next year," Fiala said, stressing that none of these funds has restrictions on investments in physical assets.

Commenting on the challenges faced by Dragon Capital's businesses in 2025, the company's head noted that there was no major difference compared with previous years, with security risks remaining the top concern.

According to him, more serious rule-of-law risks emerged in the summer, when amid attacks on anti-corruption bodies the company suspended all investments for about three weeks.

"There was a feeling that we had returned to the times of Yanukovych and authoritarian rule in the country, and we resumed investments only after the Verkhovna Rada and the president corrected their mistake and after the government eventually appointed the head of the Bureau of Economic Security," Fiala said.

He added that the company was also subjected to cyberattacks and continues to face labor-related challenges.

"We estimate the staff shortage at about 20%, which is roughly 2 million people. Wages are rising by 20–25% per year and, in foreign-currency terms, are now higher than before the war," the head of Dragon Capital described the situation.

At the same time, he said that for most businesses, growth is outpacing inflation and stands at 10% to 20% or even higher, although costs are also rising rapidly.

"It is difficult for us, when drafting budgets for 2026, to maintain the level of business margins we had over the past two years, which were generally quite good," Fiala stated.

He also highlighted the electricity issue, noting that the company has already invested more than EUR 10 million in its own power supply: a fleet of 70 generators, batteries, inverters, and solar panels at almost all shopping malls and warehouses, as well as at production facilities.

"Most businesses that are not located close to the front line or have not suffered direct physical destruction posted fairly good results in 2025, especially if they are located in western Ukraine. We are investing much more in western Ukraine, and business conditions there, in terms of demand, are better than before the war," the founder of Dragon Capital concluded, forecasting that these challenges will persist into 2026.

Dragon Capital is one of Ukraine's largest investment groups in the field of investments and financial services, providing a full range of investment banking and brokerage services, private equity, and asset management for institutional, corporate, and private clients.

The company was founded in Kyiv in 2000. According to its founder and CEO Fiala, the group's investment portfolio currently includes about 50 different companies or real estate projects. Between 2015 and 2021, the company invested about $700 million in Ukraine, excluding reinvestments.