Looking For European Leaders Under 30 At A Time Of Crisis

Plus: First He Fought Russia Online. Now He’s Fighting On Kyiv’s Streets

Prior to the war in Ukraine, covering business leaders and entrepreneurs in Eastern Europe was the focus of our partners Forbes Ukraine. Now, these brave journalists are covering the peril and uncertainty of everyday life in their homeland. Daryna Antoniuk, a tech reporter at Forbes Ukraine, writes about how Ukrainian soldiers guarding a bomb shelter make entrants pronounce the Ukrainian word for bread, palyanitsa, which is often a challenge for native Russian speakers. Forbes Ukraine’s coverage of the conflict, in Ukrainian and in Russian, can be found here. 

This week we launched the months-long process of creating our dynamic Under 30 Europe list. Our team of 22 beat reporters is scouring Europe for the most promising young leaders across 10 industries. As the world watches the continent, the climate for entrepreneurs changes with each development in and around Ukraine. What does it mean to be a young European leader at this unsettling moment? Over the next few months, our reporters will be working hard to find out.

This Week's Money Moves

Talk about a good-news, bad-news situation: NFT startup Rarify raised a $100 million Series A—while some of its key employees were stuck in Ukraine.

As pressure mounts for prominent crypto exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken and Binance to restrict access to their platforms for all Russian users, other major players in the crypto industry are taking notice and plugging potential leaks in their sanctions compliance programs.

Santa Monica VC fund M13 raised a $400 million fund—and hired its first employee with a traditional venture background.

Woman-founded Perfect Corp., whose app lets users try on makeup virtually, is going public via SPAC at a $1 billion valuation. It markets itself as a leading artificial-intelligence and augmented-reality beauty and fashion tech solutions provider.

At one American tech company that straddles the front lines, the Ukraine war—along with staff-wide communication—is dividing employees.

The Inside Scoop: How This Ukrainian Under 30 Is Supporting Her Country

Prior to Russia’s war against Ukraine, 29-year-old Victoria Repa—a 2020 Forbes Under 30 Europe Technology honoree—spent her days in Kyiv running mental and physical health app BetterMe, which has over 100 million downloads from users in 190 countries.

As the CEO and founder, her priorities revolved around user retention, growth and revenue. Now, as she shelters in her apartment, it’s country over everything. “As a business person, I need to support my army,” she says. She says she’s donating revenues to the Ukrainian army and has made the platform free to all Ukrainians.

Repa is no stranger to war with Russia. She grew up in Ukraine’s Donbas region, which she fled after war broke out there in 2014 with Russia-backed separatist groups. Since then, she says she has stopped reading the news to preserve her sanity. “I only read official sources, because [there’s] a lot of disinformation,” she says.

Repa is now relocating her employees to safety and ensuring BetterMe remains operational during power outages. But she plans to stay in Kyiv as long as she can. “It’s not only about business; it’s about my broken heart, because I love my country.” She chokes up. “I need to protect our land.”

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