The start-up wants to facilitate the immigration process for knowledge workers who want to enter the United Kingdom. The critics stated that its operations focus only on assisting experts leaving Russia. According to Helsingin Sanomat, both Mirolyubova and Sharonov are Russian nationals but long-time residents of the United Kingdom.
According to YLE, the start-up has a team consisting exclusively of Russians, some of whom are still in Russia, according to Yaroslav Krempovych, a Ukrainian venture capital investor. According to Helsingin Sanomat, an advisor to the Ukrainian minister of digital transformation, said the selection was disappointing and shameful.
The jury of Slush decided to award one million euros to an app that helps Russians get visas to the west, while hundreds of Russian missiles are hitting Ukraine.
After receiving new information on the scope of the Russian operations of Immigram, Slush decided to revoke the win.
A spokesman for the start-up conference said that we should have looked at all participants' operations more closely before letting them enter the competition.
The winner of the pitching competition was selected by the same five investment firms that were to make the one million euro investment: Accel, General Catalyst, Lightspeed, NEA and Northzone. Slush asked the investment firms to pull the investment on Monday.