Badoo founder and former MagicLab CEO Andrey Andreev has been talking to the Financial Times about what he is planning to do next.
The Russian entrepreneur stepped away from the dating industry in November, when he sold his stake in the company to private equity firm Blackstone Group. Whitney Wolfe Herd assumed the role after the deal was confirmed.
He is already working on his next mobile internet business. As a non-compete agreement with MagicLab prevents him from working on anything dating-related, Andreev revealed his new venture will aim to make donating to charity easier and more accessible.
It was very important to him that he remains a creator, rather than going down the investment route.
Andreev said to the Financial Times: “There are so many talented people looking for potential help and I can be a great partner to these guys. I don’t want to call this ‘VC’ or ‘angel investment’. I’m talking about me, as a helper to people with great ideas.”
“I am very active, I have lots of energy. I want to involve myself in not just one thing but many things. By selling MagicLab, I have a lot of fuel to run my new project.”
20 former MagicLab employees have joined the unnamed project, which is also based in London.
The news about the dating umbrella’s sale came just a few months after Forbes published a report alleging that it had a seriously misogynistic and inappropriate workplace culture. However, Andreev promised that the deal with Blackstone Group was already in motion and that he “did not sell the business because of this article”.
Last week, an internal investigation conducted by an independent law firm concluded that the majority of the claims raised by Forbes were false, although it did instruct MagicLab to reform some of its workplace policies.
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