Ownership structure and legal disputes of the Creative States coworking network

Founder and general network structure

The premium coworking network Creative States is present in Kyiv (business centres "Senator", Gulliver, "Arsenal") and Dnipro. The company's head and the network's founder is Illa Kenigshtein. He is an Israeli citizen, previously worked in media management, and founded the Hybrid Capital fund.

The main legal entity of the network is LLC "Kreatyva Krayina" (Creative Country), in which Illa Kenigshtein holds 75% of the shares. Individual limited liability companies have been created for each separate location, which have their own investor structure:

• "Kreatyvny Shchat Arsenal" (Creative State Arsenal): 40% belongs to LLC "Kreatyva Krayina", the rest is distributed between businessman Oleksiy Baranov, Ruslan Brytskyi, and two venture funds. Until December 2023, the foreign company "VERMIA LIMITED" was listed among the founders.
• "Arsenal 2": shares are distributed equally (50/50) between LLC "Kreatyva Krayina" and the fund "Laram System".
• "Dnipro": 40% of the shares belong to LLC "Kudashivskyi".
• "Senator": until April 2024, 60% belonged to LLC "K.A.N.", but currently this company is fully controlled by "Kreatyva Krayina".

Legal conflict at the Gulliver building

A complex situation has arisen around the coworking space in Gulliver. 60% of the shares in LLC "Kreatyvny Shchat Hulyver" (Creative State Gulliver) belong to LLC "Tekhnomoda", owned by Eduard Polekhin and Pavlo Podtopi. These same entrepreneurs control the construction company "Denza Construction".

In October 2024, the Kyiv Commercial Court opened bankruptcy proceedings for the coworking space at the suit of "Denza". The court recognised a debt of UAH 11.78 million under 2019 contracts relating to the supply of furniture and interior decoration.

Illa Kenigshtein comments on this situation as an internal conflict between co-owners related to investment payback periods. According to him, investors have already been returned approximately 70% of the invested funds, and he is appealing the court's decision. His former business partner Roman Khmil publicly accused Kenigshtein of siphoning off royalties, but the court did not confirm these circumstances. Case No. 910/9477/24 is at the appellate stage.

Links with state banks and the Austrian registry

An important detail is that since July 2022 (the text states "202.", contextually — 2022), the Gulliver complex has been owned by state banks: Oschadbank and Ukreximbank. An auction for the sale of this real estate complex, scheduled for October, did not take place due to a lack of interested buyers.

The so-called "Vienna trail" is also mentioned. Media reported that the Austrian company DEVERTE HOLDING GMBH was a co-owner of part of the network for a long time through a Ukrainian intermediary. In the Austrian registry, Sergey Baharev has been listed as the managing director (Geschäftsführer) of DEVERTE since 2013, and NEWWIND SERVICES LIMITED as the sole participant. At the same address (Getreidemarkt 14/34), ODM Bau&Investition GmbH is registered, owned and managed by Denys Ostrovskyi. He is known as the former owner of "SK Stroyinvest", which received state contracts worth billions of hryvnias. However, in the current data of the Unified State Register of Legal Entities related to Creative States, neither DEVERTE nor Denys Ostrovskyi was found.

State procurement

An analysis of the Prozorro platform did not reveal large state contracts with the Creative States network. Only minor deals were found: the lease of premises for the Research Institute of Intellectual Property of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine for UAH 50,000 (2025) and cleaning services for the state enterprise "Diia" for UAH 6,000 (2022).

The editorial team is awaiting official comments from Illa Kenigshtein, representatives of "Denza Construction", and Serhiy Baharev.