TEEN DREAM NOW WORTH £1BN
A PAYMENTS business founded by a teenager has become Britain’s latest ‘unicorn’, with a value of more than £1bn.
Paddle, the brainchild of Christian Owens, has scooped £162m in investment from US private equity giant KKR and a slew of venture capital firms.
The deal valued London-based Paddle at £1.1bn and is likely to make 27-year-old Owens a multi-millionaire.
The firm did not disclose the size of the stake Owens still owns.
He founded Paddle in 2012 at the age of 18, having dropped out of school two years earlier. The company serves software businesses and, using its own technology, takes care of all their customer payments, tax affairs and regulatory compliance.
Owens said: ‘We have big plans for 2022 and beyond and we’re delighted to have the backing of so many fantastic investors.’