At Least a Million Dollars a Month. Top Belarusians Who Earn on Mobile Apps
More than ten companies founded in Belarus each earned over $1 million last month in the global online showrooms App Store and Google Play. Neither COVID, nor sanctions, nor military actions particularly affected the stable generation of cash-flow by their businesses: the number of mobile product downloads depends little on the environment, and sometimes the virtual world specifically becomes a full-fledged substitute for the imperfect real one. Most of these companies continue to be controlled by the 'golden generation' of the Belarusian IT industry, which announced itself to the world between 2010 and the 2020s. About where these 'golden boys' came from, – in an overview by Office Life.
Creators of a Personal 'Klondike'
According to the research resource SensorTower, Vizor Games earned the most in online stores in July — $8 million. In June, the company's revenue was $7 million, and in May — $8 million.
Photo: vizor-games.com
Among the beneficiaries of the company are its business founders Sergey Bruy, Anton Yarashuk, and Vincent Naiden.
Vizor Games CEO Sergey Bruy entered the IT sphere in 2003 when, with partners from the cult browser game of the 2000s "Boytsovsky Klub" (Fighting Club), he launched the NeverLands project. In 2007, after returning from the USA, the BSEU graduate, where he studied international economics, created Vizor Games together with Anton Yarashuk. Another partner became Vincent Naiden. Anton Yarashuk received his education at BSUIR, and Vincent Naiden at BSU.
Initially, the company employed five people, and they focused on flash games for social networks VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, and Moy Mir. The first popular project was "Zombie Farm." In the early 2010s, Vizor Games bet on Facebook. A breakthrough at the international level was the game Klondike, released in 2014. Then came Knights & Brides.
In 2019, the Playrix holding became an investor and strategic partner for Sergey Bruy, Anton Yarashuk, and Vincent Naiden. It has Russian origins, Irish jurisdiction, and is among the top five largest developers and publishers of mobile applications in the world.
Miami Cleaners
BP Mobile was second in revenue in May and July ($6 million and $7 million respectively), and in June, with an indicator of $7 million, it shared the first place with Vizor Games.
Photo: bpmobile.by
Initially, for almost 10 years, BP Mobile worked on an outsourcing model, but practically from the beginning of the mobile era, it switched to creating smartphone apps. In the early 2010s, BP Mobile started developing its own products, which were offered on key marketplaces Google Play and App Store and generated profit.
The main sources of BP Mobile's earnings in mobile app stores are business products. These include, for example, the Scanner App for scanning documents in PDF, JPG, and TXT formats, and utility apps like Smart Cleaner. Development centers in Minsk, Moscow, and other cities also create entertaining fitness apps and mobile games.
Mobile Tankers
Over three months, $15 million (a steady $5 million in May, June, and July) was, according to SensorTower, the earnings in online stores for Wargaming Mobile – a division of one of the most famous Belarusian game development companies. Most of these profits belong to Victor and Vladimir Kislyi.
Photo: Sergey Pilipovich / Office Life
Having earned fame and considerable capital with the PC action game World of Tanks, the owners of Wargaming Group ventured into the increasingly popular mobile gaming segment in the early 2010s. In addition to developing its own division, Wargaming began acquiring existing businesses.
One of the most successful acquisitions was the Belarusian company Melesta Games, purchased from Alexey Melyashkevich. It was reorganized and developed into Melsoft and in 2020 was resold for several hundred million dollars to the Israeli publisher Moon Active. By the way, in July, Melsoft's sales amounted to $8 million – more than its 'progenitor'.
Pink Startups
SensorTower estimated the July revenue of Flo Health, one of the world's most popular women's health apps, which is developed under the supervision of brothers Dmitry and Yury Gursky, at approximately $4 million. In the previous two months, the company collected $4 million and $5 million respectively.
Photo: glassdoor.com
Project head Dmitry Gursky studied to be a pharmacist at BSU and began his career in the mid-2000s at a St. Petersburg publishing house. In the late 2000s, together with his brother Yury, he launched the publishing project Ideanomix, which has published over 1,500 books in its more than ten-year history.
In the early 2010s, Dmitry followed his brother, who by that time had sold his stake in Viaden Media, into the IT sphere. He co-founded Ideanomix Digital, a company that focused on mobile development. In 2015, it received the status of an HTP resident, and in 2016, Flo Health was created on its basis.
Flo Health, which has attracted several tens of millions of dollars from venture investors in recent years, is one of the most successful startups in the history of the Belarusian IT industry. The Gursky brothers planned to take this business public (IPO) in 2023.
EPAM Alumni
Both founders of Belka Games, which earned $3 million last month, went through the EPAM Systems school before creating their own business.
Photo: belka-games.com
From 2005 to 2010, Dmitry Khusainov was involved in creating prototypes – first versions of various projects with a minimal set of functions – at this company. And it was at EPAM Systems that he met his future partner, BSU student Yury Mazanik. While still employees of the company, they began creating games for social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. And they continued to do so, founding their own company Belka Games in 2010.
The first real breakthrough for the young businessmen was the game Cower Defense, launched on Facebook. It received a special prize from the largest global network. But the most profitable projects of Belka Games, which allowed it to become one of the leaders among Belarusian companies in online store sales, are still Clockmaker and Funky Bay. The main audience for the first game is in the USA, and for the second – roughly equally distributed between the USA and Asia.
In 2019, the American group AppLovin became interested in the business of Dmitry Khusainov and Yury Mazanik. AppLovin helps scale projects to an international level using its mobile platform. Since then, AppLovin and Belka Games have been strategic partners.
London Guitarists
From May to July, Gismart's apps generated $3 million monthly in revenue from sales on the App Store and Google Play.
Photo: Gismart
One of its founders is BSUIR graduate Dmitry Lipnitsky.
In 2007, he became one of the co-founders of the outsourcing company Intellectsoft, which gradually grew into an international group of companies and began investing in other promising product IT businesses. At one time, the owners even considered the possibility of taking the company public (IPO) on one of the world's leading financial platforms.
In the 2010s, Dmitry Lipnitsky, who moved to London, invested independently and with partners in several projects. The most successful was his partnership with Alexander Mints, with whom he founded Gismart, a mobile app developer, in 2013. The first product of their joint business to 'hit big' was the guitar simulator Real Guitar. In 2019, the company started developing mobile games. Gismart also publishes products from other teams and invests in startups.
In 2020, the British business publication Financial Times included Gismart in its ranking of the fastest-growing businesses in Europe.
Ambitious Publishers
SayGames entered the mobile gaming market in 2017 and within a couple of years became one of the top 10 global leaders in terms of downloads on the App Store and Google Play. In July, it earned $3 million from them, and $2 million in each of the two preceding months.
Photo: say.games
The joint project of Yegor Vaikhansky and Andrey Sokol, SayGames, is one of the contenders for the unofficial title of the main discovery in Belarusian business in the 2010s.
After graduating from BSU, Yegor Vaikhansky worked as a designer for several foreign companies for almost four years. His first independent project in 2011 was an English language school for IT company employees – IT English.
SayGames develops a business model where it seeks out and supports strong developer teams. Its first 50 products, some of which topped global popularity charts, were created by 10 teams. The plan was to double this number through the special SayHero program, under which they intended to invest $10 million.
University Game Developer
One million dollars last month and $2 million each in June and May – such was, according to SensorTower, the minimum 'catch' of the game development company Playgendary, with its head office in Munich.
Photo: Playgendary
Its founder has a serious educational background. Before getting into mobile games, Dmitry Shelyangovsky studied physics at BSU and at Beijing University of Science and Technology. After founding the company, he expanded his horizons by studying design at the University of Barcelona.
He started developing mobile games in the mid-2010s. Initially, Shelyangovsky's company was called Inventain, then it was renamed Playgendary. Success came in the second half of the 2010s and is linked to the explosive growth in popularity of Playgendary's products in the American market. The game Bowmasters, released in 2016, was a breakthrough.
Now reading
"Zhenya agreed to construction, not to fight. And only when he gets out of his binge!": How a resident of Lyozna was sold to the Russian army. He's not the only victim 3
"Zhenya agreed to construction, not to fight. And only when he gets out of his binge!": How a resident of Lyozna was sold to the Russian army. He's not the only victim
Security forces conduct 'mask-shows' for Belarusians who can no longer be criminally prosecuted for participating in marches – as a preventative measure 1616
Comments