00:00The logo on display here in central Berlin isn't very well known, but that could soon
00:07change.
00:09If you have been to Ukraine recently, you likely will have come across shops like this
00:14one, belonging to Novoposta, a private Ukrainian postal service.
00:20The company is rapidly expanding and has so far set up branches in 15 European countries
00:26where they go by the name of Novopost.
00:29The market potential is huge, with close to 6 million Ukrainians staying in the EU.
00:35Like this woman, who is sending a parcel to her mother.
00:38It was shoes, because soon it's her birthday, and I just wanted to send a small gift for
00:43her, because I miss her so much.
00:45And Novoposta feels like at home when you come here.
00:49They are quite fast in sending things.
00:53At the end, in a couple of days, when I leave Germany, I could travel with not heavy luggage.
01:01This is like a small piece of Ukraine.
01:05About 1,000 kilometers east, we're in the Kiev region in central Ukraine, at Novoposta's
01:11largest logistics hub.
01:13Here 20,000 packages are processed every day.
01:17Work never stops.
01:19It's one of the most robotized and automated objects in European logistics.
01:29That's why there aren't many people here.
01:35Vyacheslav Klimov is one of the co-founders of Novoposta.
01:39The company started in 2001, with two friends making deliveries from the trunk of this car.
01:45It was very difficult to deliver all goods all around Ukraine, and we decided to create
01:56some Ukrainian DHL or Ukrainian FedEx.
02:01Today, Novoposta employs more than 32,000 people.
02:07Around 1.5 million deliveries are made every day.
02:10The strategy, according to its founder, is the key to its success.
02:16The format of our post offices is very close to Starbucks standard, honestly.
02:24You could see, for example, our post office with two sides on crossroad.
02:34Customers don't have to go far with countless pickup spots spread across the country, including
02:39stores and lockers.
02:42Novoposta aims to be customer-friendly and digital.
02:46Their app has 7 million users in a country of less than 40 million.
02:52After almost two decades of continued growth in February 2022, it seemed the success story
02:57might be over.
02:58We had to close a lot of our post offices, especially on occupied territories.
03:09But maybe in one or two months, we understood that we're still alive.
03:16We had a strong financial position.
03:19It was a point of restart.
03:22Novoposta continues to work in all parts of Ukraine that they're able to access, including
03:27frontline towns where they often provide a lifeline.
03:31That's put them at risk.
03:33Novoposta's employees have frequently been targeted by Russia, like here in Kharkiv in
03:37June when a Russian glide bomb exploded next to a branch.
03:41Despite the impact of the war, the company plans to grow further and become an institution
03:47outside of Ukraine.
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