Professional mourners: who and how earns on emigration of Russians
Among entrepreneurs, one of the few beneficiaries of the situation that has developed in the Russian market since February 24 has been companies providing business relocation services and assistance to specialists in moving. The demand for such services continues to grow. Forbes found out what business models exist in this niche and what services related to relocation earn or plan to earn
“If we used to receive several dozen applications a day, now there are several hundred of them,” Anastasia Mirolyubova, co—founder of the immigration platform for technical specialists and entrepreneurs, says in an interview with Forbes. In the first quarter of 2022, the project signed contracts with more customers than in the whole of last year. In addition, amid the boom, Immigration managed to attract the first $500,000 of investments, which it began to look for at the end of 2021.
The demand of Russians to move to other countries and relocate businesses has increased sharply after the start of the “special operation”* Russia in Ukraine. Entrepreneurs who built a global business or had foreign clients faced the inability to receive payments from abroad and continue working. Startups that planned to attract foreign investment or enter foreign markets also faced the need to relocate their business. Individual specialists, including those from the IT sector, also began to move. For example, more than 1,000 employees of Yandex, Avito, Tinkoff Bank and developer DataArt left for Turkey, the WSJ wrote.
Agencies and services specializing in relocation help to choose a country to restart a business or move, get the necessary documents, open a company, and simply establish a life in another country. Among them, in addition to Immigration, are the projects Hello Move, EP Advisory, Intermark, Relocate UAE, “Leave”, etc. Forbes tells how this business works.
There and back
Relocation agencies are a relatively new business model. And the term “relocation” itself became widely used only in February-March 2022. According to the Yandex Wordstat service, this keyword was searched 8000 times in January, almost 10,000 times in February, and more than 38,000 times in March. If earlier the word was used mainly by IT specialists considering life and work abroad, now specialists and entrepreneurs from other fields have also learned about relocation, Anastasia Mirolyubova states.
Although the surge in interest in relocation occurred in 2022, there are also old players among the companies that help with the relocation. For example, Intermark has been on the market for almost 30 years. It was founded by three partners: Britons Fraser Lawson and Mark Hamilton, who came to Moscow in 1993 to develop the Moscow Country Club Golf Club and hotel, and Russian Alexander Shatalov. Soon they noticed a free niche — assistance to expats who come to work in Russia, with legal and other issues. And they opened the Intermark agency for this idea.
Initially, the project helped foreigners in Russia with the search for apartments and houses for rent. The company solved this task on a turnkey basis: from searching for an object and negotiating with the owner to connecting the Internet. In the future, the agency began to provide immigration support services — registration of work permits and other documents necessary for foreigners in Russia, transportation of their personal belongings and pets, etc. In the mid-2010s, Intermark also began to help with the relocation of Russian companies that open offices in other countries and take employees there. As part of this direction, the agency organizes relocation to Europe, the USA, some Asian countries (Philippines, Thailand), CIS countries and even South Africa.
Despite the emergence of a new direction, the basis of Intermark’s business was assistance to expats and foreign companies in Russia, says Marina Semenova, managing director and co-owner of the agency (since 2015 she owns 10% of Intermark). But since February 2022, the situation has changed: foreign clients whom Intermark once helped with the relocation of business to Russia, on the contrary, began to move with the help of the agency to other countries, says Semenova. She does not disclose the names of foreign client companies, but notes that these are medium and large businesses. Most of them, according to Semenova, took employees abroad temporarily, their decision to leave Russia is not final.
Semenova says that in the current flow of clients leaving the country, Russian startups stand out, which urgently take out their employees, because their investors or clients are not ready or can no longer work with Russia. Sometimes such clients come with a request for a mixed relocation: for example, the operating team moves to Yerevan, and the founders move to Dubai.
Currently, the most popular destinations at Intermark are Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Georgia and Armenia are popular with IT companies and services, and companies that have production facilities are going to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, says Semenova. At the same time, she notes that among foreign companies that used to work in Russia, there is a tendency to look for options for relocating the Russian office to one of the CIS countries in order to “have a point of presence in the region.”
The number of applications for business relocation from Russia from Intermark in March and April 2022 increased 10 times compared to the monthly average in 2021, Semenova claims, without disclosing absolute financial indicators. According to her, the number of “expert opinions” (when companies are asked to calculate the necessary relocation costs) has grown from five to 25 per month. So far, most of Intermark’s customers are foreigners. But, according to Semenova’s forecasts, the advantage will soon be on the side of the Russians: “There will be more Russian companies that want to leave.”
Departure of talents
The migration platform for technical specialists and entrepreneurs, Emigram, unlike Intermark, appeared relatively recently — in 2020. Its founders — Anastasia Mirolyubova and Mikhail Sharonov — are graduates of University College London. After studying, both stayed to live in the UK. Since 2017, Mirolyubova has worked in law firms: first in the international company Simmons & Simmons, then in the Kadmos immigration boutique. Sharonov worked at the London immigration law firm Sterling Law.
Since Mirolyubova and Sharonov themselves were emigrants from Russia and worked for immigration companies in the UK, they knew what problems those who plan to move face. Over time, the partners drew attention to the fact that the country began to attract more and more technical specialists and simplify the immigration process. In 2019, the Global Talent program appeared in the UK. Visa recipients are given the right to work for three to five years, and they can also engage in entrepreneurship. Outstanding specialists from various fields, including IT, can get a visa. According to Mirolyubova, the advantage of such a visa is that it equates the rights of its holders to the rights of Britons: with it you can get any job, open your own business, work as a freelancer, study or “do nothing at all.”
The emergence of the Global Talent program, as well as the success of startups with Russian roots Revolut and Arrival, created in the UK, made the country especially popular for moving among Russians. Mirolyubova and Sharonov decided to make money on this. They began to take on the hassle of preparing a case for applying for a talent visa: writing a client’s story that would be as convincing as possible for Tech Nation (the body approving visas), and collecting all the necessary documents — letters of recommendation and motivation, resumes. Immigram has also started to provide customers with access to a closed immigrant community for better adaptation in the UK. In addition, the service helps to rent housing, arrange insurance, open a bank account.
According to Mirolyubova, the demand for the platform’s services was considerable even before the relocation boom associated with the start of the “special operation”. But now the team is barely coping with the loads, she admits. Applications come from venture investors, entrepreneurs and IT specialists. “They all communicate with each other and organize their big exodus,” says Mirolyubova. She notes that previously clients planned to move several months in advance, and now they are looking for relocation opportunities as soon as possible.
At the end of February, the number of applications for legal and technical assistance in moving and relocating technology businesses to the UK from Immigration tripled, and in March — two more, reaching almost 4,000. Moreover, the majority of applications were from residents of Russia (65%), in second place entrepreneurs and specialists from Ukraine (24%), in third — from Belarus (11%), lists Mirolyubova. The company’s sales for the first quarter of 2022, according to her, exceeded $900,000, now the year-on-year growth is 900%.
At the end of 2021, the founders began to prepare for the first investment round. They were looking for money to develop the platform, automate the immigration process and marketing. In April 2022, the company closed a $500,000 round. Investors include Xploration Capital funds, Joint Journey Ventures, Hatchery startup incubator at University College London, Mikita Mikado, head of PandaDoc, and several other business angels. In the near future, the company plans to expand the list of countries and visa programs offered for relocation.
Beauty for an immigrant
