Belarusian Startup Founders Face Exile and Statelessness
Exiled Belarusian founders fight for survival after Imaguru's shutdown. Discover their story of innovation, freedom, and resilience abroad.
Matilda
Belarusian Startup Founders Face Exile and Statelessness Belarusian Startup Founders Face Exile and Statelessness: The Story of Imaguru’s Battle for Innovation and Freedom Searching for what happened to Belarusian startup founders, or why Imaguru became a symbol of resistance? The journey of Belarus’s tech pioneers turned “extremists” answers these pressing questions. Tatyana Marynich and Anastasiya Khamiankova, co-founders of the startup hub Imaguru , have been sentenced in absentia to a combined 23 years in prison by Belarusian authorities. Their crime: empowering entrepreneurship in a country where innovation threatened an authoritarian regime. Now exiled and stateless, their story reflects the high price of independence in today's Belarus—and the global tech community's urgent support for human rights and innovation. Image : Google A Decade of Innovation Crushed by Political Repression Launched in 2013 in Minsk, Imaguru quickly became the beating heart of Belarus’s emerging startup scene. Over the years, this co-wor…