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Yuri Gurski (also written: Yury Hurski; Russian: Юрий Гурский; born January 23, 1983) is one of the most successful Belarusian IT entrepreneurs. Among Eastern European investors, Yury is acclaimed for his extraordinary number of business exits: the firms that he funded and advised have been acquired by Google (AIMatter, 2017), Facebook (MSQRD, 2016), Russian internet giant Mail.Ru (Maps.me, 2014), the world`s largest online gaming firm Playtech (Sport.com, 2013) and Israel`s billionaire Teddy Sagi (Viaden Media, 2012).[1] [2]

Gurski is a founding partner of the venture capital firm Haxus led by serial entrepreneurs and focused on artificial intelligence startups at the seed or even pre-seed stage. [3]

In 2016, GoalEurope described Gurski as "the most successful IT entrepreneur in Eastern Europe [4] and Emerging Europe listed him as one of the most-active angel investors in Belarus. [5]

Activities

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Yuri Gurski has been building international IT and media businesses for many years as an executive, entrepreneur, investor and startup mentor. He is focused on identifying strong startups which work on revolutionary products based on not-easy-to-replicate technologies to help them succeed on a large international scale.

Gurski is the founder and owner of the publishing house Ideanomix and the app developer Ideanomix Digital. [6]

Yury co-founded and invested in AIMatter, maker of the Fabby computer vision app powered by neural networks. On August 16, 2017 AIMatter was successfully acquired by Google. [7] The deal can be called historic for the Belarusian IT industry. [8]

In October 2016 Gurski co-founded together with Aleksej Gubarev Haxus Ltd. [9] Its current portfolio includes OWHealth, a U.S. – based digital health company where Yuri Hurski serves as the Founder and President. [10] Its mobile app Flo is the fastest growing AI-driven women's health platform which has attracted more than 10 million monthly active users in over 200 countries. [11] Flo holds the #1 position among competitors in the App Store in 50+ countries, including USA. [12] Supermodel and philanthropist Natalia Vodianova is taking part in Flo’s campaign to increase awareness and get young women to feel more comfortable talking about their physical and mental wellbeing. [13] The new worldwide campaign "Let's Talk about it. Period." has been launched in August 2017.[14]

Yury Hurski is also mentoring Prisma, a mobile app which uses a unique combination of neural networks and artificial intelligence to transform photos into artworks in the styles of famous artists. [15] Prisma has been featured by The New York Times, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, Business Insider, and more. [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]After launching in summer 2016, Prisma immediately skyrocketed in popularity and was named the Best App of 2016 by Google and Apple. [21] [22]As of July 2016 Prisma had 12.5 million installs. [23]

In 2015, Gurski invested in and mentored Masquerade, the maker of the MSQRD app for 3D face-swapping in photos and videos, which Facebook bought in March 2016. [24] Mark Zuckerberg announced the acquisition on Facebook with a video of himself using the product. [25] Google said MSQRD was the No. 2 most-downloaded app on the Google Play store in 2016. [26]

Gurski mentored Maps.me, which provides offline maps and navigation services. It was acquired by Mail.Ru in 2014 to support the Russian internet company’s international expansion. [27] After that deal Gurski joined Moscow-based Mail.ru where he was the Vice President for New Product Development. [28]

In 2010, Gurski co-founded Viaden Media, a developer of iPhone apps, which Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi bought in 2012 for an undisclosed amount. [29] Gurski continued as the CEO of Sport.com, a mobile fitness app with more than 45 million users worldwide which was a spinoff of Viaden Media and which Playtech later acquired.[30] [31]

Yuri Gurski has been active in the Belarus startup community as a mentor, lecturer and event sponsor, and has authored more than 30 books on IT topics which were popular in Russia.

Gurski holds a master's degree in journalism from Belarusian State University and an Executive MBA degree from Kozminski University.[32]

Awards and recognition

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  • Ranked No. 1 in list of "Top Belorussian Business People Under 40 in 2016", Probusiness.by magazine. [33]
  • Ranked No. 3 in list of "Top 50 Personalities in the Belorussian IT World 2016", ITmentor. [34]
  • Ranked No. 9 in list of "Top Belorussian Business People Under 40 in 2015", Probusiness.by magazine. [35]
  • “Kozminski Lion Distinguished Alumnus of Kozminski University”.
  • “Mentor of the Year 2014", BEL.BIZ / Belarus High-Tech Park. [36]

References

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  1. ^ "Want the mentor of Prisma, MSQRD, Maps.me invest in your startup?". GoalEurope. 2016-07-27. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  2. ^ "Google Acquires Belarusian Start-Up AIMATTER". BelarusFeed. 2017-08-17. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  3. ^ "Haxus - Haxus.com - AI/AR/VR startup muscle". haxus.com. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  4. ^ "Want the mentor of Prisma, MSQRD, Maps.me invest in your startup?". GoalEurope. 2016-07-27. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  5. ^ "Belarus Is Ready to Begin With Venture Capital Investments - Emerging-Europe.com". Emerging-Europe.com. 2016-08-05. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  6. ^ "Haxus - Haxus.com - AI/AR/VR startup muscle". haxus.com. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  7. ^ Lunden, Ingrid. "Google acquires AIMatter, maker of the Fabby computer vision app | TechCrunch". Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  8. ^ "Google Acquires Belarusian Start-Up AIMATTER". BelarusFeed. 2017-08-17. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  9. ^ "Haxus | crunchbase". www.crunchbase.com. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  10. ^ "About Us - Flo is Your Personal Period Tracker App & Ovulation Calendar". Flo is Your Personal Period Tracker App & Ovulation Calendar. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  11. ^ "Flo takes aim at women's health in $5M Series A round". MobiHealthNews. 2017-08-14. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  12. ^ Inc., OWHealth. "Flo Reaches 10M MAU and Raises $5M in Series A to Advance Women's Health". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2017-08-17. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  13. ^ "Supermodel Natalia Vodianova joins ranks of celebrity healthcare investors with women's healthcare startup - MedCity News". medcitynews.com. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  14. ^ Inc., OWHealth. "Flo Reaches 10M MAU and Raises $5M in Series A to Advance Women's Health". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2017-08-17. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  15. ^ Lomas, Natasha. "Prisma's next AI project is a fun selfie sticker maker called Sticky | TechCrunch". Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  16. ^ Eaton, Kit (2016-08-03). "Prisma Adds an Artist's Touch to Photos". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  17. ^ King, Hope (2016-08-23). "Wildly popular Prisma app just made a major breakthrough". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  18. ^ "Why Artificial Intelligence Won't Displace Human Artists". Bloomberg.com. 2016-12-16. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  19. ^ Jones, Jonathan (2016-07-18). "Prisma: 'Edvard Munch did not have a "Munch filter" in his brain'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  20. ^ "The CEO of the summer's hottest photography app says that trippy filters are 'just the beginning'". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  21. ^ "Apple selects 'Best of 2016' apps, movies, iBooks and more". AppleInsider. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  22. ^ Curtis, Sophie (2016-12-02). "Pokémon Go and Prisma named best Android game and app of 2016". mirror. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  23. ^ "Prisma app for Windows Phone, video support coming soon". PC-Tablet. 2016-07-28. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  24. ^ Lunden, Ingrid. "Facebook acquires video filter app Msqrd to square up to Snapchat | TechCrunch". Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  25. ^ "Facebook won a bidding war against 2 other companies for a hot new app that could help it fend off Snapchat". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  26. ^ "Apple names Haxus-linked Prisma and MSQRD best apps of 2016 - Haxus.com - AI/AR/VR startup muscle". haxus.com. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  27. ^ Lunden, Ingrid. "Mail.ru Buys Maps.Me To Integrate Crowdsourced Maps Into Its My.com App Portal | TechCrunch". Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  28. ^ "Mail.Ru Group has appointed Yury Gursky Vice President of new products". en.news-4-traders.ru. Retrieved 2017-08-17.
  29. ^ "Which global IT-billionaires have an address in Belarus? | Business data processing". businessdataprocessing.com. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  30. ^ "Haxus - Haxus.com - AI/AR/VR startup muscle". haxus.com. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  31. ^ "About us: facts and figures | Sport.com". sport.com. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  32. ^ "Yuri Gurski: How to Find the Right Investor for Your Project and Attract Investment | dev.by". events.dev.by. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  33. ^ "ТОП-40 белорусских предпринимателей до 40 лет - PROBUSINESS.IO". PROBUSINESS.IO (in Russian). 2016-11-29. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  34. ^ "Топ-50 персон в белорусском ИТ 2016 (часть 1)". itmentor.by (in Russian). Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  35. ^ "Топ-40 белорусских бизнесменов до 40 лет - PROBUSINESS.IO". PROBUSINESS.IO (in Russian). 2015-10-29. Retrieved 2017-08-18.
  36. ^ "Ментор года |". gew.by (in Russian). Retrieved 2017-08-18.
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