Rodion Shishkov

TRA Robotics

Shishkov is the founder of TRA Robotics. The company designs and builds automated microfactories allowing for flexible, software-driven manufacturing with capital expenditures a dozen times less than traditional factories.

TRA Robotics sold to commercial electric vehicle manufacturer Arrival

Samokat

In 2017, Rodion Shishkov and Slava Bocharov founded Smart.Space, a company and app focused on improving service convenience in business centers and residential complexes. Among other services, it provided a rapid delivery of grocery and consumer goods under the name Magazinchik (Russian: a small shop). In January 2018, it was split into a separate company Samokat, which became the first dark store delivery service (according to Inc. magazine) and was the fastest-growing food technology company in Russia.

Samokat's complex technological background included demand forecasting and delivery control systems. It became the world's second app (after Getir) to offer a 15-minute delivery. By 2021, Samokat made up to 900,000 deliveries monthly. In April 2020, a controlling share in Samokat was acquired by Sberbank and the Mail.ru Group. Samokat became No. 1 in the E-grocery market by revenue, number of orders, and market share in online food sales, holding a 17% share, and broke into the top 5 FMCG retailers.

Buyk

Following the success of Samokat in Russia, Shishkov and Bocharov launched a US-based dark store delivery company Buyk, which used some elements of Samokat's technological backend. Buyk began operations in New York City in September 2021 and in Chicago in December. By the end of 2022, the company planned to expand to Boston, Houston, and Miami. The growth was supported by investments from Fort Ross Ventures and Lev Leviev's LVL1 venture fund.

By the time Russia launched the full-scale invasion into Ukraine, Buyk was between the funding rounds and fully dependent on bridge financing from its founders. The sanctions against Sberbank (also the investor of Fort Ross Ventures) hampered their ability to continue funding Buyk. On March 17, 2022, the company filed for bankruptcy.

All3

In 2023, alongside Slava Bocharov, Rodion founded All3, an AI and robotics company in the construction sector. With its proprietary advanced AI and robotics technology, All3 offers bespoke designs and manufacturing with minimal human input by streamlining processes, reducing inefficiencies and costs, and significantly boosting productivity. All3 delivers an end-to-end approach, targeting maximum impact across the entire value chain, in order to tackle the global housing crisis.