A Billionaire a Day

This year Forbes tracked down a record 493 new billionaires— roughly one every 17 hours. Just over 40% hail from China; 20% are from the U.S. Prominent routes to new riches: IPOs, SPACs, cryptocurrencies and Covid-related health care.

IPOS

Since mid-March 2020, 1,489 IPOs (including SPACs) raised $314 billion globally. More than half went public in the U.S., where they raised $277 billion. These 10 billionaires land on the list as a result of such public offerings.

Pan Dong $8.3 billion • Consumer goods • Canada The richest woman new to this year’s list, she chairs laundry detergent maker Blue Moon Group Holdings, which listed in Hong Kong in December. Her husband, Luo Qiuping, is the company’s CEO. Vyacheslav Kim

$3.3 billion • Fintech • Kazakhstan Mikhail Lomtadze

$3.2 billion • Fintech • Georgia

CEO Lomtadze and chairman Kim have steered Kaspi—a payments, e-commerce and mobile-banking app used in Kazakhstan— from a small-time retail bank to a London public listing. Half of Kazakhstan’s 18 million people use the service. Pablo Legorreta

$2.9 billion • Investments • U.S.

The former investment banker founded private equity firm Royalty Pharma in 1996 to buy future revenue streams of pharmaceuticals. He took it public on the Nasdaq in June.

Matt Moulding $2.9 billion • E-commerce • U.K.

His e-commerce empire, The Hut Group, went public in London in September. Two months later he got a $1 billion share bonus that the board had approved. Tony Xu

$2.8 billion • Food delivery service • U.S. Xu is cofounder and CEO of food delivery company DoorDash, which listed on the NYSE in December. It delivers meals from 390,000 restaurants in the United States, Canada and Australia. Jared Isaacman

$2.3 billion • Payment processing • U.S. Isaacman, 38, founded payment processing firm Shift4 Payments in his parents’ basement at age 19 and took it public on the NYSE in June. He flies fighter jets for fun, including a Soviet-era MiG-29. Bang Shi-hyuk

$2.3 billion • Entertainment • South Korea Founder of music label and agency Big Hit Entertainment, which represents the wildly popular K-pop band BTS, he took the company public on the Korea Exchange in October. Gong Yingying

$2.1 billion • Health IT • China

She is CEO, chair and founder of health-care analytics firm Yidu Tech, which listed its shares in Hong Kong in January. David Helgason

$1 billion • Software • Iceland

Helgason cofounded video-game software developer Unity Software in Denmark in 2004 and served as CEO until 2014; the company listed on the NYSE in September.