Sergey was born in Moscow, Russia. When he was four years old, his family immigrated to the United States. During his childhood, he lived in California and Colorado before moving to Florida, where he spent most of his teenage and young adult years.
After attending high school in South Florida, Sergey enrolled in the University of Florida as a finance major. His interests lied with starting a business and he got involved with an IT startup and was listed as a co-founder. Sergey graduated from college in 2009.
The first startup that Sergey was involved in as a co-founder was a chat service that supported audio and video for customer service applications on websites. It was his first experience working closely with engineers, and he realized how much value there was in technology. That realization led Sergey to try and start more tech companies. He eventually got involved with and helped start, another tech business. This business was a distance learning platform for educational facilities that taught classes in the Russian language. Sergey also served on the advisory board for a private jet company in South Florida.
Sergey is most known for founding JetSmarter. His inspiration for the idea began in 2009 when he started using private jets to travel, and he realized that the archaic, and mostly-analog, industry had plenty of opportunities for innovation and growth. At the time, mobile marketplaces were becoming popular, and he saw a chance to apply that idea to the industry. Sergey established professional relationships with many private carriers and investors. Eventually, he was able to acquire funding for JetSmarter from celebrities, the Saudi royal family, top industry executives, several strategic investors, and other private entities.
In November 2012, Sergey launched a beta version of JetSmarter and limited its membership to industry experts and frequent private jet patrons. JetSmarter expanded and launched globally in March 2013 with the goal of making private jet travel accessible to more flyers. JetSmarter now partners with at least 800 carriers that have more than 3,200 aircraft combined. JetSmarter is the world's largest online private jet travel and lifestyle community.
Sergey’s vision was to create more private flights and develop an app that would facilitate that. JetSmarter now guarantees private jet booking availability in more than 170 countries. His business model includes unique benefits for members who pay the annual membership fee, including helicopter services and free one-way flights and shuttles between popular destinations. There are more than 10,000 members around the globe.
