Dmitry Bukhman

Dmitry Bukhman is a Jewish software entrepreneur and investor, born in the Soviet Union and holding Israeli and British citizenship, who co-founded the mobile-games company Playrix with his brother Igor. The brothers began by selling computer games and screensavers while still young in Vologda, far from the established centers of the technology industry. They developed that small operation into an international business known for games including Township, Fishdom, Gardenscapes and Homescapes.

Bukhman's significance rests not simply on the wealth that followed, but on his combination of programming, mass-market product design and global company building. Playrix became one of the world's leading mobile-game publishers by revenue, employed thousands of people across different countries and created products used by a large international audience. He later broadened his work into investment and philanthropy, making substantial commitments to child and family research, maternal and neonatal health, youth mental health and translated literature.

A Jewish childhood in Vologda and an unusual beginning

Bukhman was born on May 27, 1985, in Vologda in the Soviet Union, to Jewish parents. He and his brother Igor developed an early interest in programming and began selling games online while they were still in high school. Their beginnings were practical and modest: they made small games and screensavers, observed what attracted customers and learned how software created in their home city could be distributed to buyers elsewhere.

In 2004, while studying applied mathematics at the Vologda State Pedagogical Institute, the brothers founded Playrix. By that year they had released three games and approximately 30 screensavers. By 2007, their catalog had grown to 16 games and the business was reportedly earning about $300,000 a month. That early growth demonstrated a principle that would shape their careers: a digital product created far from a conventional technology capital could find a worldwide market if it was accessible, polished and responsive to users' habits.

Building Playrix and its global game franchises

Playrix evolved from a producer of small computer games into an international publisher focused largely on mobile entertainment. Its best-known titles combine puzzles, gradual progression, the construction or restoration of virtual spaces and an easily followed story. This formula helped the company reach not only established gamers but also people for whom a smartphone provided a first point of entry into games.

Games that attracted a broad audience

• Township combines city building with resource management and farming activities.
• Fishdom links match-three puzzles with the creation of virtual aquariums.
• Gardenscapes and Homescapes combine puzzles with the restoration and decoration of gardens and homes, accompanied by continuing narratives.

The business achievement extended beyond the success of any single title. Playrix built systems for operating and updating games over many years, regularly supplying new material and serving users in numerous countries and languages. In June 2023, the analytics company Data.ai ranked Playrix seventh among mobile publishers worldwide by annual revenue and first in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. That year, the company employed more than 3,000 people around the world.

Growth through studios and investment

Bukhman and his brother expanded beyond Playrix's internal development teams. In 2018, they personally invested in the video- and social-game developer Nexters Global and in the Belarusian company Vizor Games. In 2019, Playrix acquired the Armenian studio Plexonic and Serbia's Eipix Entertainment. These moves helped form a development network that crossed national borders and offered regional studios access to capital, distribution and a global market.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Playrix announced in October 2022 that it would close its offices and development operations in Russia and Belarus. The decision accelerated its transformation into a geographically distributed international company no longer dependent on an operating center in its founders' country of birth.

From a small venture to international investment

Playrix's success gave Dmitry and Igor Bukhman substantial resources to invest. Dmitry first appeared on the Forbes list of the world's billionaires in 2020, when his fortune was estimated at $3.1 billion. In April 2023, the estimate stood at approximately $7 billion. Such valuations fluctuate, but they illustrate the exceptional economic value created by a software company that began with small home-produced projects.

In 2021, the brothers launched Rix Capital, a family investment operation established to manage and invest their wealth. According to figures published in 2023, it managed about $4 billion of the brothers' personal funds and opened a permanent office in London. The progression from developing individual games to managing long-term capital extended their influence into other businesses and fields. In 2025, The Sunday Times placed Dmitry Bukhman among the ten wealthiest people in the United Kingdom and ranked him first on its list of the wealthiest Britons under 40.

Philanthropy for children, families and literature

Dmitry and Daria Bukhman established Bukhman Philanthropies in 2024. The foundation identified three core areas: maternal and neonatal health; the mental health and wellbeing of children and young adults; and literature. These priorities connect fundamental medical and social needs with the cultural value of language, reading and the movement of ideas between societies.

Among the foundation's first major commitments were $10.5 million to Duke University's Center for Child and Family Policy, $10 million to Stanford University School of Medicine and more than $6 million to UNICEF for a longitudinal study of childhood in the digital age. This research is particularly relevant at a time when screens, social networks and digital products have become central features of childhood. Long-term study can help families, educators and policymakers understand not only immediate risks, but also the effects of technology across different stages of development.

In 2026, the foundation became a supporting funder of the International Booker Prize during the tenth-anniversary year of the prize in its current form. The prize brings literature translated into English to an international readership and divides its award equally between the author and translator. Supporting it reinforces the essential work of literary translators and helps writing from a wide range of languages circulate beyond its place of origin.

Migration, identity and life across international centers

Bukhman's life reflects a mobile, transnational Jewish and Israeli identity. Born into a Jewish family in the Soviet Union, he moved to Dublin in 2014 and obtained Israeli citizenship in 2016. He relocated to London in 2020 and became a British citizen in 2025. He is married and has four children.

His is a contemporary story of entrepreneurship untethered to one location: it began in a provincial Russian city, developed through an Irish corporate base, acquired an Israeli dimension through citizenship and continued from the United Kingdom. For Jewish and Israeli readers, that trajectory belongs to a much wider history of Jewish individuals building lives, enterprises and institutions across borders while remaining connected to more than one society.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Dmitry Bukhman merits inclusion in Moreshet because his story documents a distinctly twenty-first-century form of Jewish and Israeli influence: a Soviet-born Jewish programmer and Israeli citizen who turned early technical skills into a global digital-entertainment business, then directed part of the resulting resources toward medical and social research, children's wellbeing and international literature.

His demonstrated impact can be seen in products that reached a worldwide audience, thousands of jobs across Playrix and its associated studios, investments that connected developers in several countries with broader markets, and grants intended to improve knowledge about childhood in a digital society. His profile on Moreshet.com is therefore not based merely on the scale of his personal fortune. It rests on the enterprise he built, his success in transforming locally produced software into a global operation and his subsequent movement into philanthropy with clearly defined public purposes. His life adds a contemporary chapter about Jewish migration, technology, entrepreneurship and social responsibility to the record preserved by Moreshet.