Ksenia Yudina
Courtesy of Ksenia Yudina
UNest
Ksenia Yudina spent much of early 2022 trying to move about one-quarter of her employees out of a war zone. Of her 42 staffers at UNest—the North Hollywood, Calif.–based digital brokerage for parents aiming to invest and save for their children's education—12 were located in Ukraine, Russia, or Belarus when Russian troops invaded Kyiv at the beginning of this year. In March, Yudina's team spent nights and weekends finding routes to move employees to safety and issuing cash payments to developers and their families. At the same time, they were prepping for the rollout of UNest's cryptocurrency offering, which formally launched, albeit with a slight delay, in September. The war has been personal for Yudina, who herself is Russian. She fled to the United States at age 18, working as a hotel housekeeper before landing a job at Capital Group. Yudina has raised $38 million for UNest from venture capital firms including Anthos Capital, the Artemis Fund, Franklin Templeton, and Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures. And recently, the firm inked a partnership with iHeartMedia, which is investing $8 million in UNest and will advertise the company across iHeartRadio. Follow: Twitter Instagram