Yuri Milner

Yuri Borisovich (Bentsionovich) Milner (; born 11 November 1961) is a Soviet-born Israeli entrepreneur, investor, physicist and scientist. He is a cofounder and former chairperson of internet company Mail.Ru Group (now VK) and a founder of investment firm DST Global. Through DST Global, Milner is an investor in Byju's, Facebook, Wish, and many others. In 2012 Milner's personal investments included a stake in 23andMe, Habito, Planet Labs, minority stake in a real estate investments startup, Cadre in 2017. Early life Born into a Jewish family on 11 November 1961, in Moscow, Yuri Milner was the second child of Soviet intellectuals. His father, Bentsion Zakharovitch Milner, was Chief Deputy Director at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and was active in the sphere of management and organization. Betty Iosifovna Milner, Yuri's mother, worked at the capital's state-run virological laboratory for disease control. His older sister, eight years his senior, is an architect. Milner became an Israeli citizen in 1999. In 2005, he moved to Israel with his family, and they relocated to California in 2014. Milner has stated he has not been to Russia since the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. In August 2022, he renounced his Russian citizenship, reportedly in response to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.