Why We Run Several Businesses at Once
October 2, 2026 · #atom group #strategy #investment
ATOM includes an animation studio, a music label, a social network, and a sports platform. Agriculture is part of the group too. I know how that list looks from the outside: are we spreading ourselves too thin?
I treat ATOM as one group and bet on it as a whole.
One Group, Twelve Areas
We recently announced Atom Green Capital and Atom Health Capital. Both are connected to work already under way elsewhere in ATOM. We now span twelve areas, including medicine, finance, sports, and agriculture, with dozens of projects in total.
With twelve areas, I need one clear way to decide which ideas receive investment and which projects keep moving.
The Twelve Areas of ATOM
- Finance and the Digital Economy
- Medicine and Life Sciences
- Architecture, Construction and the Built Environment
- Education and Human Capital
- Science and DeepTech
- Robotics and Manufacturing
- Energy, Climate and Resources
- AgTech and FoodTech
- Mobility, Logistics, Aviation and Space
- Media and Creative Industries
- Sports and Human Performance
- Cybersecurity, Trust and GovTech
How a Project Gets the Green Light
When an idea reaches us, I start with a basic question: can it work? Colleagues from different parts of ATOM examine it together.
Then I look at who is going to carry it.
An interesting idea gets no green light if the people behind it are weak. A raw project can move forward when the team is strong and its leader inspires confidence. We invest in people, not projects.
Once they earn my confidence, we build the roadmap together and agree on milestones. The timeline follows the goal set at the start, so every project runs on its own clock. From that point, they have to deliver on what they promised.
Money comes next: I compare how the investment is used with the roadmap and see how the team handles responsibility.
A mismatch starts with one question: why? We study the cause and give them several chances to correct course. If the gap remains, we pause the project.
No checklist can make that decision for us; each case has its own context. In the end, their actions settle it.
Atom Green Capital: The Team Comes First
Atom Green Capital shows how we make those decisions.
An investor in our community who advises people in agriculture brings us the idea of carbon credits. Our business developer follows the chain to industrial hemp. Growing it can generate those credits, while the crop has many high-value uses.
The next step is a person. The business developer brings in a young scientist who has studied industrial hemp for years. That scientist invites someone else.
Atom Green Capital now has its team in place. We are building an R&D laboratory for plant breeding and beginning work under several partnership agreements.
Its momentum comes from people who understand the subject and are ready to carry the project.
How the Areas Reinforce One Another
In venture investing, dozens of positive outcomes can offset one failure. That is why we spread investments across the areas.
Each area can draw strength from the others. Agriculture, for example, can use finance and analytics. Neural networks help us spot more links across the group.
Three Rules We Work By
People are the most valuable resource I have. A reliable team gives a project a chance to succeed.
Putting all our eggs in one basket creates too much risk. We work with several clients and keep Plan B and Plan C ready.
Fast growth is possible when I know in advance how we will respond to a crisis.
Where the Projects Stand Today
I call a project a product when people outside ATOM already use it. Here is the honest picture today.
JGGL has been available on the App Store and Google Play for several months. Its monthly audience is about 45,000.
Arteki Studio produces its own films and is developing production technology for other studios.
IMBA is an active music label with more than 30 signed artists. Their tracks are already coming out.
Arena launched about six months ago and now includes more than 400 football clubs. Preparations for drift and basketball are under way.
Atom Green Capital now has its team in place. Its R&D laboratory for plant breeding is under construction, and work is beginning under several partnership agreements.
The Same Skeleton
These businesses belong together because they follow the same decision logic.
Inside ATOM, it guides project selection and shows us where one area can strengthen another. We use neural networks to trace those links. The result is a method for solving problems with AI, and we are building it into iXo.
iXo comes from an internal tool. A limited group uses it today. We call it an exoskeleton for thinking: it sees the whole picture and leaves the decision to the person.