A 26-year-old has change into Britain’s youngest billionaire after launching his companies at the beginning of the pandemic.
Johnny Boufarhat crowdfunded cash to launch video conferencing app Hopin after inventing the app from his girlfriend’s Kings Cross bedroom whereas he was bedridden in 2018.
As Britain entered lockdown final March the business exploded and now has over 80,000 shoppers, experiences the Mirror.
The Manchester University graduate mentioned the thought took place two years previous to the Covid emergency however he was not in a position to safe any cash for a dwelling working service at the time.
Boufarhat frolicked in Los Angeles and Dubai as a baby earlier than transferring to the UK to review at Manchester University
The entrepreneur was left bedridden attributable to a thriller sickness and the then 21-year-old, Johnny started coding a programme which permits conferences to be live-streamed over the web.
Now the zoom-style service has eight builders and reaches over 5 million individuals and values £4.1 billion.
As a results of the corporate’s success Sydney-born Johnny now has a web value of £1.5 billion inserting him 113th on the Sunday Times Rich List.
Johnny’s mother and father, a mechanical engineer and an accountant, moved to Australia from Lebanon through the civil struggle earlier than transferring to Los Angeles then Dubai.
The billionaire then travelled to the UK to review mechanical engineering.
While finding out, Johnny additionally developed an app that gave college students reductions at eating places.
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After graduating in 2018 Johnny was identified with an autoimmune illness which left him unable to get away from bed, resulting in his lightbulb second.
In November 2019 Johnny famously instructed angel buyers “it will be the quickest rising firm in the world,” simply earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic started.
He managed to safe hundreds of thousands in funding to launch the app in March final yr after which “issues went loopy”, he mentioned.
During the pandemic its consumer base soared to 5 million and Hopin had gross sales of £54 million in the yr to January 2021.
The Kings Cross born business is forecast to rake in £130 million this yr.
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Johnny now lives in Barcelona with his fiancée, who works with him. The agency has no workplaces and its 500 workers are largely in the US and UK.
Since the business has been so profitable Johnny has additionally been in a position to chill out a little. (*26*) of working his standard seven day working week he now takes a half break day on Saturdays.
He instructed the Sunday Times: “I’m very, very work-focused. I simply need to be as impactful as I can, in a optimistic method for the world… I’m boring – I do not drink, I do not do something like that.
“I be sure that all my meals is natural. That’s the largest change I’ve made.
“I’m very, very work-focused”.
The entrepreneur additionally ranks quantity three in a listing of the UK’s wealthiest younger individuals.
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The seventh Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor, aged 30, got here in first place in the Sunday Times Young Rich List, with an eye-watering wealth of over £10 billion after inheriting his title and a £8.3 billion fortune following the loss of life of his father, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor, in 2016.
Ed Sheeran, 30, got here in at quantity 7 with a powerful wealth of £220 million.
Little Mix – made up of Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Perrie Edwards and Jade Thirlwall – made fourteenth place with a mixed wealth of £54 million, up £6 million in comparison with final yr.
North London resident Harry Styles, in the meantime, was named the wealthiest member of One Direction with a wealth of £75 million at the age of 27.
His tenth place was adopted by Niall Horan, additionally 27, at £52 million, Louis Tomlinson, 29, at £45 million and Liam Payne, 27, at £44 million.
See the complete Sunday Times Rich List right here.
