For international marketplaces, fintech projects, and IT platforms, a transparent technical and financial footprint is a mandatory condition for sustainable operations. Whether a bank opens an account and whether payment gateways are connected determines the very ability of a business to function in the global market. Therefore, choosing a jurisdiction is not a formality, but a strategic decision that determines the pool of accessible banks, partners, and operating regions for years to come.
For IT entrepreneur Dmitrii Iuldashev, this approach was not a matter of tactics, but of personal values. With entrepreneurial experience dating back to his school days, on May 24, 2021, at the age of 21, he registered Kantara IT Group in Estonia to bring technological products to the international stage. The team focused on deep R&D, sophisticated service architecture, and a fully transparent reporting model. This foundation allowed the platform to confidently navigate European banking compliance and scale globally.
How the Jurisdiction Was Chosen for an IT Company
By the time the international corporate entity was founded, Dmitrii had already built a practical background launching educational platforms and managing a custom web development agency. Bringing products to external markets required a stable European operational base with predictable regulation. After consulting with law firms and reviewing the tax regimes of seven jurisdictions, ranging from Asian hubs such as Hong Kong to American and island zones, the founder selected the Estonian ecosystem. A compelling additional argument was the success of the global payment platform Wise, created by Estonian founders: its market capitalization clearly confirmed the country’s status as a reliable hub for tech businesses. Examples of other successful Estonian IT projects also played a significant role.
“When I created my first company for international operations, I already had experience serving as a CEO in my home country alongside almost six years in entrepreneurship, having launched my first business back in high school at age 15. Therefore, I approached the decision of where to base my next company very thoroughly. Of course, I also looked into available exotic islands, tax free zones, and offshore destinations, but when I calculated the cost of maintaining an opaque structure and how many questions it would trigger from the very first bank, everything fell into place: a tax free jurisdiction that is cheap to register ultimately turns out to be the most expensive one.”
The decision was driven by three practical factors: a high level of digitalization, a flexible tax system, and a clear legal landscape. The electronic residency program and advanced digital infrastructure made it possible to register a corporate entity in just a few days, manage the company remotely, and file tax returns from anywhere in the world. In the spring of 2021, during the peak of COVID restrictions, this proved to be exceptionally valuable.
The tax regime proved to be the decisive factor: a 22% rate applies solely to dividend distributions, while there is no corporate tax on retained earnings whatsoever. Funds remain in circulation and are entirely reinvested into product development and infrastructure. At the same time, profits can be openly declared in annual reporting without triggering additional tax burdens, which increases trust in the eyes of banks and business partners, while financial performance results are accessible online in the official public registry. Furthermore, Estonian legislation for the tech sector is structured transparently, without excessive bureaucratic hurdles at the outset: the country is friendly toward innovations and new business models, creating a comfortable environment for technology enterprises.
The Early Years of Operation and the Commitment to European Regulation
Choosing a fully established European jurisdiction over offshore or midshore zones was primarily a reflection of the founder’s fundamental approach to business, and only secondarily a strategic calculation and a plan for integration into the European ecosystem. From a young age, Dmitrii was taught to follow the rules and conduct business strictly within the legal framework, which meant that transparent public registries and full compliance with European regulatory standards were a natural operational model for him. He describes the launch of Kantara IT Group as follows:
“When we started out, the company operated as a contractor for European and American clients. Back then, what helped us most was our prestigious Estonian corporate domicile alongside a wide selection of available payment methods so that major corporations could pay us easily. Two years later, having gained substantial experience in custom development for complex platforms, we decided to launch our own marketplace in the psychology and self improvement sector. I spoke with European lawyers, examined fintech industry practices, and realized a simple truth: if you are building a marketplace simultaneously for the domestic European market and the global market, honest adherence to universal rules and regulatory requirements is the only viable foundation. The jurisdiction I had chosen two and a half years prior became a solid framework for this new stage of business growth.”
During the initial years following registration in 2021, while the team was fulfilling contracts for European and American clients, new projects came in through word of mouth recommendations. Integrating into the Estonian digital environment relieved the team of routine daily operations. Operating within an EU jurisdiction provided the company with a European VAT number and connection to the One Stop Shop (OSS) system: through this framework, it is possible to legally administer and remit value added tax to each of the 27 European Union member states when selling digital products. International payment tools, including Wise, were connected swiftly, and accounting workflows functioned flawlessly, allowing the team to focus exclusively on IT and product engineering.
Kantara IT Group’s Transition to Proprietary IT Products
After participating in the development and technical support of dozens of major services, mobile applications, and platforms across the EduTech, FinTech, and Mental Health sectors, in mid 2023 the company transitioned to creating its own proprietary product: an international marketplace for educational content creators, independent consultants, and influencers.
This was a resource intensive fintech ecosystem operating under the Merchant of Record (MoR) model. In terms of financial liability and transactional complexity, this operational format closely mirrors operating under full scale financial licenses. The platform served thousands of content vendors and supported tens of thousands of buyers, was localized into five languages (English, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish), and processed sales of online courses and digital materials worldwide. The core resources were dedicated to writing platform code, integrating cross border payment gateways, automating verification workflows, and conducting rigorous security system testing.
Growth Through Platform Creators and Measurable Marketing
Upon the marketplace launch, the creators themselves became the primary growth driver: hundreds of Instagram bloggers alongside creators from TikTok and YouTube hosted their digital products on the platform. While selling courses through services owned or operated by Kantara IT Group, they promoted the platform to their audiences in Stories, Reels, and reviews. When a creator personally uses a product and showcases it to their followers, it acts as a far more persuasive driver than any paid ad integration.
As a young founder and CEO (when the company reached a revenue of 1.5 million euros per year by 2024, he was 24 years old), Dmitrii had a deep understanding of social media and short videos, including TikTok. The team supplemented this organic growth with measurable channels, with targeted advertising reaching over 28 million unique impressions, and the company participating in industry conferences with its own booths in Turkey, the UAE, Serbia, Argentina, and Indonesia (Bali).
“Social media is a familiar environment for me; I grew up in it. When hundreds of bloggers host their products on your marketplace, they naturally tell their audiences about you. The absolute best advertising occurs when a creator genuinely uses the platform rather than merely talking about it. We supplemented this organic traffic with targeted advertising and conference participation, but our growth foundation was driven precisely by the creators. The Estonian jurisdiction maintained friendly relations with the primary countries where we operated, which made it easy to establish contacts and deploy financial tools to collaborate with creators worldwide.”
The cumulative media reach of the influencers operating through the platform reached hundreds of millions of users, with export sales coming in from over 50 countries outside the European Union.
Transparency as a Core Corporate Value When Working with Banks
The Merchant of Record model entails a high level of financial liability; consequently, when connecting global payment gateways, European banks and regulatory bodies audit such companies with extreme rigor. For Kantara IT Group, these reviews proceeded smoothly: having been built from day one on principles of transparency, the company showcased its internal workflows without embellishment.
Regulators and financial partners were granted direct access to platform administrative panels, bank statements, and detailed tax reporting, often on a real time basis. Auditors were shown exactly how thousands of educational content vendors were verified and monitored, including the integration of specialized third party KYC providers such as Shufti Pro. Estonia’s transparent public registry, where the company’s balance sheets and revenue figures are publicly visible, combined with a complete transaction history and architectural documentation, resolved bank inquiries faster than any slide deck presentation.
“I remember one of our first serious compliance inquiries: an acquiring bank asked us to demonstrate how we verify creators and conduct moderation on sold content. We simply gave them access to our admin panel and spent two hours walking them through the entire process, from onboarding to payouts. Of course, over our years in business, we have encountered just about everything one can possibly face: at our operational volume, you are guaranteed to run into every possible bad actor. Whenever difficulties arose, it was precisely the reputation we had cultivated over the years that helped us resolve the most complex issues.”
A Technical Foundation and Legal Integrity
Choosing the Estonian jurisdiction, prioritizing proprietary product development, and scaling through platform creators proved to be a highly pragmatic decision. The team built a resilient architectural foundation, configured complex cross border payment chains, and fine tuned legal workflows. Successfully navigating European compliance and collaborating with fintech industry leaders validated the founder’s core principle: in the global market, true business reliability is proven by clean code, transparent taxes, and an unblemished legal track record.
