Sergey Tokarev on Roosh’s non-standard goals and ambitious projects

Recently, a new technology company Roosh appeared on the Ukrainian IT market. It develops products based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and also intensively invests in promising projects. The company’s founder is IT entrepreneur and Reface investor Sergey Tokarev.

Tokarev’s initiative was supported by the financier and IT asset management expert Sergey Kartashov, Den Dmitrenko, the person who founded Reface, as well as Kiril Ukho and Eugene Kozytskyi.

According to Sergey Tokarev’s Facebook post, the team has set the goal of optimizing, gathering, and structuring all processes in the company. The team has planned to release the projects they started working on back in 2020. Despite the fact that most companies take a different, more familiar approach to organizing their business, Roosh decided to move away from the generally accepted rules. According to the expert, only this method is the most productive in creating projects that can change the industry and are worthy of investing in them.

The company is aimed at the development of various technological areas, and its management intends to focus on projects based on AI and ML.

At the moment, this knowledge-intensive area is gaining more and more popularity in the IT industry and related fields. According to a study by Stanford University, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning attract the most investments. Moreover, last year, marked by the Covid pandemic, the share of private institutions in this area was 60%, exceeding $40 billion.

Roosh can already present several successful projects, despite the fact that it has only recently started its work. For example, Reface. The app was downloaded 100 million times in 14 months and the amount of investment in it is estimated in millions. The success of the app is evidenced by the fact that in the fall of 2020 it bypassed Netflix, YouTube, Zoom, and even the super popular among young people TikTok in the App Store ratings. The trick of this product is the ability to swap faces on GIFs and videos. For example, users can watch a favorite music video starring themself. And even Elon Musk was among the application fans.

Among other projects of the Ukrainian startup, it is worth noting a venture capital studio Pawa. It is developing projects related to Machine Learning. According to Sergey Tokarev, thanks to this initiative, ML practices can be transformed into a full-fledged company. The team’s plans are to create the largest accelerator of startups in Europe that will actively develop AI and ML projects, and the main focus will be on finance, medicine, as well as projects related to games and media.

The Roosh team has created another interesting project—ZibraAI. It was launched in the summer of 2021. Using compact neural connections, the specialists of this startup perform 3D rendering and create 3D objects. According to them, this technology will help make the virtual component of the game as close to reality as possible.

And the venture capital fund Roosh Venture, which is also one of the projects of the Ukrainian company Roosh, actively supports startups. Its analysts are looking for the most promising American and European projects with the priority to the early-stage project and are investing in them.

Sergey Tokarev believes that AI and ML technologies are the basis for the future. They have long ceased to be just scientific practices and are actively applied in everyday life. An example of this is video games that completely immerse the player in virtual reality, or translation programs and text editors.

According to the head of Roosh, his team is focused on qualitative changes in the IT market of Ukraine. ML specialists from Ukraine are becoming increasingly popular in the world. Therefore, more often they agree to move to another country or switch to outsourcing. Roosh is aimed at changing this trend and therefore is actively working on promising startups that will help retain specialists in Ukraine.

You can find out more about Sergey Tokarev in the source.