Oleksii Mas began working on the internet when the Ukrainian market was only just taking shape. He was born in Kyiv in 1974, attended physics and mathematics school No. 145, and then studied at the radio physics faculty of Kyiv University. From 1993 to 1997 he worked at NIIASS, then at Ukrainsky Kapital bank. From September 1997 to March 2000 he was a leading specialist at the National Bank of Ukraine, handling payment processing.
In January 1999, together with his classmate Ruslan Dmytrakovych, he founded the Ukrainian Banner Network, which sold advertising on Ukrainian websites. In 2000, Mas and investor Oleksandr Soroka launched UAportal, as well as Derevo Druzei (Tree of Friends), which publications called the first social network on a Ukrainian portal. In 2003 and 2004, Infostore.org appeared, a photo hosting service in which Mas invested together with investors including Oleksandr Olshanskyi.
From banners to social networks and Kyivstar
The Infostore project did not last long. On 4 December 2008, the police seized its servers and the service closed. Ivan Savchenko, who came from Infostore, later pursued his own projects, while Mas focused on another direction. In 2009 he became a co-organiser of the iForum conference and led its Internet Business track. In 2012, Mail.ua, created together with Olshanskyi, was sold to Mail.ru for approximately half a million dollars. For the Ukrainian internet of that time, it was a notable but not loud deal, and it showed that local services could find buyers in Russia.
In 2015, Mas joined Kyivstar as IT & Digital adviser to the company's president, Petro Chernyshov. He later headed the Innovation Lab, an internal laboratory that sought new products and startups for the operator. In 2016, with the lab's participation, the VDNKh-TECh-Kyivstar telecom accelerator was launched. In 2017, Mas found himself at the centre of a scandal: his post comparing the blocking of VKontakte to deportation sparked a wave of criticism. He himself remained a public figure, spoke at conferences and gave interviews about family and work.
On 31 July 2019, Mas left Kyivstar. Already in August he launched Craft Social Networks, a project financed by small investors. Participation in the syndicate initially cost $100. By November 2019, the syndicate had about 280 members. In spring 2020, the organisers postponed iForum-2020 to the autumn due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and this decision affected the entire conference that Mas helped organise.
An unfinished project
In August 2021, Craft Social Networks again entered the public eye. In response to criticism, Mas said that 411 investors were involved in the project and that about $58,000 had been raised. For a project built on the money of private individuals, these figures were the main argument that the idea was alive. Among the syndicate members were not only first-round investors but also people who contributed small sums.
The death of Oleksii Mas came in early October 2021. His brother Viktor announced it on Facebook and wrote a short post that quickly spread through Ukrainian professional communities:
"Illness did not let you finish what you started"
Fakty ICTV noted that after the news of his death, many obituaries from former colleagues, investors and participants in his conferences appeared in the media and social networks. Mas left behind three children: a daughter, Diana, a son, Mykhailo, and a daughter, Liza.
Craft Social Networks remained Mas's last major project. At the time of his death, according to the latest public data, the syndicate listed 411 investors and the amount raised stood at about $58,000.
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