Serafim Prokofev

Serafim Prokofev is an entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Visby, a travel-tech startup. He came to startups through case competitions and the entrepreneurial community. In 2025, he began systematically building his network at business events in Moscow and exploring a range of business ideas.

Between 2024 and 2026, he took part in numerous case competitions as a team lead. In January 2026, he organized an open talk from scratch with Grigory Solovyov, founder of Marmeladych and a Forbes Russia 30 Under 30 honoree, for an audience of 130+ people. Serafim came to travel tech after many trips of his own, where he kept running into problems that stop people from getting the most out of their travels.

One of those problems became the starting point for his new startup, Visby - a social network for safely planning shared trips and finding travel companions who match your personality type. After a short test, the app matches people with high compatibility, taking destination and dates into account. Users can find their next trip in a personalized recommendation feed, while profile verification via selfie and passport checks keeps the community safe. Serafim is building the product himself with AI tools and plans to launch it publicly by the end of 2026.

He is also the founder and CEO of Prokofev Studio, a full-cycle studio that builds websites and mobile apps with AI integration. Beyond building new products, the studio redesigns existing ones and helps companies adopt AI to streamline their business processes.

Serafim has been based in Yerevan since 2026, where he studies law at the Yerevan branch of Lomonosov Moscow State University. As community lead, he is building the local Unicorn Embassy community and organizes meetups with entrepreneurs and professionals from a wide range of fields.