Revolut boss named as UK’s first tech start-up billionaire

The 36-year-old boss of banking business Revolut has been revealed as Britain’s first technology start-up billionaire in The Telegraph’s new Tech Hot 100 ranking of the industry’s richest leaders.

Nikolay Storonsky, who co-founded the business in 2014, has a net worth of £1.06bn based on his holding in the company.

Mr Storonsky still has a significant stake in Revolut, which operates a banking app and allows its customers to buy cryptocurrency as well as silver, gold and shares in publicly listed businesses.

Revolut’s valuation rose to $5.5bn (£4.2bn) earlier this year when the business raised $580m in funding from backers including TCV.

The Tech Hot 100 ranking reveals that the total wealth of  Britain’s most successful start-up chiefs rose from £4.5bn last year to £8.5bn. Half of the 10 richest start-up founders in the UK were born abroad.

Others on the ranking include Ben Francis, the 28-year-old chief executive of Gymshark and a former pizza delivery driver whose net worth has reached £700m.

Both co-founders of currency exchange business TransferWise are also included in the top 10 of the list, with a combined net worth of £1.2bn.

Russian-born Mr Storonsky, a keen kite surfer and a former champion swimmer, has led the company’s expansion to 36 countries around the world. The business now has more than 10 million customers and is targeting a full US launch after years of breakneck growth.

The London fintech scene

He joins an elite group of British billionaires including vacuum entrepreneur Sir James Dyson, who has a net worth of £16.2bn, and Denise Coates, who built her family bookmaking firm into online gambling behemoth Bet365 and is thought to have a £7.3bn fortune.

The company’s rapid expansion has led to claims of a punishing work culture, including allegations that the business encouraged employees to work through weekends.

Mr Storonsky has promised to change Revolut’s work culture, with  the start-up dropping its mantra of “Get s*** done” which had been displayed on the walls of its Canary Wharf headquarters and replacing it with the less aggressive "Get it done".

Revolut’s international expansion led to concerns in Lithuania that the company could be influenced by the Kremlin due to Mr Storonsky’s father’s job at oil behemoth Gazprom. An investigation by the Lithuanian parliament found no security risks at Revolut.

The Tech Hot 100 ranking was compiled using estimates of wealth from UK company filings provided by data partner Beauhurst and original reporting. The ranking covers businesses founded in the past decade.