Nikolay Storonsky | |
|---|---|
Никола́й Никола́евич Сторо́нский | |
 Storonsky in November 2022 | |
| Born | 21 July 1984 |
| Other names | Nik Storonsky |
| Occupation | Businessman |
Nikolay Storonsky (born 21 July 1984) is a Russian-born British entrepreneur. He is best known as the co-founder and CEO of Revolut and the founder of venture-capital firm QuantumLight. Revolut is now operational in more than 35+ countries and serves 50 million customers. The company is valued at $45 Billion as of August 2024. [1]
Storonsky was born on 21 July 1984 [2] in Dolgoprudny, a town located about 20 kilometers North of Moscow's city centre.
As a child, Storonsky boxed and took up swimming as a teenager, becoming a state champion later at his university. He is also keen kite surfer and a mountaineer in his free time. He always dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur since childhood, and started reading books on economics and business when he was six. [3] [4] His father, Nikolay Mironovich Storonsky, [5] has been Deputy General Director of Science for the natural gas research institute Gazprom Promgaz.
He completed his master's degree in General and Applied physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. [6] He graduated with another Master's in Applied Economics and Finance at New Economic School in Moscow. [6]
Storonsky started his career as an equity derivatives trader at Lehman Brothers from 2006 - 2008 and later moved on to work at Credit Suisse where he continued till 2013. Storonsky moved to England in 2004 and later acquired British citizenship.
In 2022, Storonsky condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine [7] and renounced his Russian citizenship. [8] In his open letter, he also pledged that Revolut will match every donation made to the Red Cross Ukraine in solidarity with victims of the war. [9]
Storonsky's experience as a trader gave him a deeper understanding of the global finance and the challenges faced by consumers and businesses who need to move money across borders, which eventually led to him founding Revolut in 2015 together with Vladislav Yatsenko. [10] [11] [12]
The idea of the company came when, while travelling, he was dumbfounded by the high transaction fees and commissions levied by banks. [13] His first idea was a multi-currency bank card that would allow currency conversion while traveling at a favorable rate. [14]
The Revolut platform was created to allow travellers to spend in over 90 countries. [15] Revolut offers accounts and debit cards for fee-free spending abroad at real exchange rates. [16]
In 2021, Revolut became the most valuable fintech firm in the UK. [17] [18] As per the 2023 annual report, Revolut achieved a revenue of 1.8 million GBP, with a net profit of 344 million GBP. As of November 2024, the company serves 50 million customers globally and has more than 10,000 employees. The company is valued at $45 Billion as of August 2024. [19] [20] [21]
In 2022, Storonsky launched QuantumLight a quantitative venture capital firm relying on algorithms and artificial intelligence over human input to source deals. QuantumLight developed a proprietary AI system named “Aleph”, to identify promising investment opportunities [22] . QuantumLight claims that Aleph tracks the entire universe of venture-backed companies since the ’90s, to determine “robust and stable success patterns”.
QuantumLight supports startup founders by sharing Storonsky’s best practices for building high-performance scale-ups, influenced by his experience as the founder of Revolut. The firm has recently begun publicising some of these best practices to a wide audience, with the launch of “Driving High Performance” in September 2024. [23] The book was widely publicised and shared in the technology community, being referenced by investors such as Index Ventures [24] and large publications like Forbes and Fortune. [25] [26] As of November 2024, QuantumLight’s disclosed portfolio includes: ThanksBen, Builder.io, Deepscribe, Ghost, MarqVision, Mesh, Monta, RadAI, RobinAI. [27]
Storonsky made the 2022 Forbes Billionaires List with an estimated wealth of $7.1 billion and occupied the 336th position. [18] Welp Magazine also named him in the following lists: '101 UK Founder & CEO’s To Follow in 2022' and '101 UK CEO’s To Follow in 2022'. [28] [29]
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