Yuri Gurski

Yuri Gurski (Belarusian: Юры Анатол'евіч Гурскі, born 23 January 1983) is an IT entrepreneur, founder of several startups subsequently acquired by Facebook, Mail.ru Group, Google and Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi.

Yuri Gurski
Born (1983-01-23) 23 January 1983
Minsk, USSR (Now Belarus)
Alma materBelarusian State University, IPM Business School
OccupationIT entrepreneur
Years activeSince 2006
SpouseDivorced[1]

Yuri is a Co-founder & CEO at Palta.com (previously known as Haxus), a health & well-being tech company,[2] which best-known products are Flo and Lensa apps.[3]

In 2016, GoalEurope called Gurski "the most successful IT entrepreneur in Eastern Europe.[4]

Life

Yuri Gurski was born on 23 January 1983 in Minsk, Belarus.[5]

In 2000, he graduated from secondary school No. 219. In 2008, he completed a master’s degree in journalism from Belarusian State University. In 2010, he obtained an Executive MBA degree from the IPM Business School under the Kozminski University program (Warsaw, Poland).[6]

Gurski worked as the CEO of the Piter M LLC (the representative office of the Piter publishing house in Minsk) from September 2003 to December 2009.

In 2008, he co-founded Ideanomix book house in partnership with one of the largest CIS publishing houses, EKSMO. Since 2006, he has been working in the IT sector.[5]

He has a twin brother, Dmitry, who is a CEO of Flo.[7]

In 2016, Gurski and his family moved to the city of Limassol, Cyprus. Yuri is a vegetarian.[8][5]

IT-Business

In 2009, Gurski co-founded Viaden Mobile, part of Viaden Media.[5] The company’s main focus was the creation of fitness and gaming apps, including All-in Pedometer, Yoga.com, and All-in Fitness.[9] In 2012, Viaden Mobile was acquired by Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi.[10]

In 2013, Gurski took over as CEO of Sport.com, which specialized in fitness apps.[8] Under his leadership, the company had become an HTP-company and developed several popular mobile applications for sports and fitness.[11] He left the project in 2014.[12]

In 2014, he became a mentor of the Maps.me project. During Yuri's two-year tenure, the project grew into a large mobile offline map for travelers with over 90 million installations across the world.[5] Later the same year it was acquired by the Mail.ru Group corporation to become a part of the My.com brand.

Gurski also joined Mail.ru in November 2014.[13][4] In 2016, he held the position of Vice President of new product development.[10] He left Mail.ru Group on 29 July 2016. Representatives of Mail.Ru Group stated the conflict of interest as the reason for dismissal. The issue has been resolved through the parties have come to the understanding that the conflict of interest did not take place.[14][3][15]

He was a mentor and investor of the MSQRD project (video and photo selfie app), acquired by Facebook on 9 March 2016.[16][17]

Gurski co-founded Palta, which in 2015 created the Flo, an AI-powered women’s health platform. In October 2018, Palta received $200 million valuation. As of 2021, It has more than 2.4 million active subscribers and employs over 600 people across its offices in London, Munich, Limassol, Vilnius, and Warsaw. Other company products include Simple, a nutrition and behavioral health tool, and Zing Coach, an AI-backed fitness coach.[18][19][20]

In 2017, Google bought the AIMATTER start-up owned by Gurski and Yury Melnichek.[21] This year Yuri participated in the preparation of the decree On the development of the digital economy which was intended to create unprecedented conditions for the development of the IT industry to turn Belarus into an international tech haven.[22] Gurski commented on the prospects of the decree on Belarusian television.[5]

In spring 2018, Gurski cooperated with the management team at Gagarin Capital, which invests in AI-based projects, including photo service Prisma and later Lensa based on it.[5][23][24]

In August 2021, Palta announced that it had raised $100 million in a Series B funding round led by Per Brillioth at VNV Global, with the participation of Target Global and other investors.[25]

Publications

Gurski was the owner of the Ideanomix publishing house, and an author of about 30 popular books on information technology, including a bestseller about Photoshop.[8][10][26]

Selected works:

  • Y. Gurski, A. Zhvalevski. Video Tutorial. Photoshop CS4[27]
  • Y. Gurski, G. Kondratyev. Photojokes with Photoshop[28]
  • Y. Gurski. Photoshop CS2: Tips and Tricks[29]
  • Y. Gurski, A. Zhvalevski, V. Zavgorodni. CG: Photoshop CS5, CorelDRAW X5, Illustrator CS5[30]
  • Y. Gurski. Digital Photography. Tips and Tricks[31]

Awards and recognition
  • Ranked No. 1 in Top Belarusian Business People Under 40 in 2016 and 2017, Probusiness.by magazine[26]
  • Ranked No. 3 in Top 50 Personalities in the Belarusian IT World 2016, ITmentor[32]
  • Ranked No. 9 in Top Belarusian Business People Under 40 in 2015, Probusiness.by magazine[33]
  • “Mentor of the Year 2014", BEL.BIZ / Belarus High-Tech Park[34]
  • “Belarus Entrepreneur of the Year 2011"[35]

References
  1. "Развод IT-миллионера". officelife.media (in Russian). Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  2. "Palta — Co-Founding Company". palta.com. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  3. Howell, David. "Alexey Gubarev: "Cyprus could become the technological center of Europe."". Silicon UK. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  4. "Want the mentor of Prisma, MSQRD, Maps.me invest in your startup?". goaleurope.com. 27 July 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  5. Lee, Allen (15 August 2021). "10 Things You Didn't Know about Yuri Gurski". Money Inc. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  6. "Executive MBA - Kozminski University - Warsaw, Poland". www.kozminski.edu.pl. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  7. "15 беларусов, которые окончили Executive MBA и попали в рейтинг самых влиятельных бизнесменов". Kyky.org (in Russian). Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  8. Ганжур, Елена; Кинякина, Екатерина. "Вторая жизнь Prisma: кто выкупил долю Mail.ru Group в известном фотоприложении". Forbes.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 13 December 2022.
  9. Минский экспресс: зачем Facebook купил совсем молодой сервис MSQRD, РБК, (in Russian)
  10. Белорусский IT-бизнесмен Юрий Гурский стал вице-президентом Mail.Ru Group, (in Russian)
  11. "Юрий Гурский объявил об уходе из sport.com". PROBUSINESS.IO (in Russian). 16 October 2014. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  12. "Сооснователь Sport.com Юрий Гурский стал вице-президентом по новым продуктам Mail.Ru Group". Digital Report (in Russian). 10 February 2016. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  13. Mail.Ru Group объявляет о новых назначениях, (in Russian)
  14. Стулов, М. "Mail.ru Group урегулировала конфликт из-за Prisma". Ведомости (in Russian). Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  15. Голицына, Анастасия. "Mail.ru Group урегулировала конфликт из-за Prisma". Ведомости (in Russian). Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  16. «Это не чудо»: Юрий Гурский объяснил природу ошеломительного успеха MSQRD, (in Russian)
  17. "Facebook buys popular face swapping app for silly selfies". businessinsider.com. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  18. Health, Flo. "US FemTech Market Leader Flo Health Completes $12M Series A; Scores $200M Valuation". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2018-10-25.
  19. Kresge, Naomi; Khrennikov, Ilya; Ramli, David. "El ciclo menstrual le genera millones a estas apps". El Financiero. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  20. Olsen, Emily. "Period tracking app Flo releases anonymous mode and more digital health briefs". MobiHealthNews. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  21. Lunden, Ingrid. "Google acquires AIMatter, maker of the Fabby computer vision app". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  22. "Belarus signs law enabling set-up of cryptocurrency hubs". The National. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  23. Lovett, Laura (3 August 2021). "Serial digital health cofounding company Palta scores $100 million in Series B". MobiHealthNews. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  24. Хабибрахимов, Альберт (12 April 2018). "Ментор MSQRD Юрий Гурский и Дмитрий Волков из SDVentures присоединились к Gagarin Capital". vc.ru. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  25. Bhatla, Prabhjeet (2021-08-03). "Palta Closes $100 Mn Series B Funding Round Led By VNV Global". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  26. ТОП-40 белорусских предпринимателей до 40 лет, 2016-11-29, Probusiness.by magazine, (in Russian)
  27. Гурский, Юрий; Жвалевский, Андрей (20 April 2009). Видеосамоучитель. Photoshop CS4 (in Russian). Издательский дом "Питер". p. 288. ISBN 978-5-498-07318-7.
  28. Гурский, Юрий; Кондратьев, Геннадий (16 February 2010). Фотоприколы с помощью Photoshop (in Russian). Издательский дом "Питер". p. 2010. ISBN 978-5-498-07578-5.
  29. Гурский, Юрий (2005). Photoshop CS2: Трюки и эффекты (in Russian). Питер®. p. 512. ISBN 978-5-469-01045-6.
  30. Гурский, Ю.; Жвалевский, А.; Завгородний, В. (2011). Компьютерная графика: Photoshop CS5, CorelDRAW X5, Illustrator CS5. Moscow: Piter. ISBN 9785459005240.
  31. Анатольевич, Гурский Юрий (31 March 2010). Цифровая фотография. Трюки и эффекты (in Russian). Издательский дом "Питер". p. 448. ISBN 978-5-498-07541-9. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  32. Топ-50 персон в белорусском ИТ 2016, ITmentor, (in Russian)
  33. Топ-40 белорусских бизнесменов до 40 лет, Probusiness.by magazine, (in Russian)
  34. Юрий Гурский удостоен звания «Ментор года», BEL.BIZ / "Парк высоких технологий", 2014-11-26, (in Russian)
  35. Юрий Гурский стал "Предпринимателем года", 2012-04-12, (in Russian)
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