Once Jack Ma, the boss of Alibaba–China’s e-commerce giant said that “If you are still poor at 35, you deserve it”. Now one of Alibaba’s biggest bets in Indian e-commerce-cum-payment firm Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma (widely known as VSS) has become country’s youngest billionaire at the age of 39.
The latest list of Forbes magazine has ranked Sharma at 1,394th with a personal asset of $1.7 billion. Besides he is the only Indian billionaire in the under-40 league.
In 2017 edition, Sharma’s net worth was valued at $1.3 billion, while he was ranked 1567 in that year.
Sharma’s inclusion in Forbes list is a good news for Indian startup community as a seven-year-old firm has drawn world’s attention because of its product play and rapid growth.
Sharma owns 16 per cent of Paytm, which is now a decacorn company as its valuation reached about $10 billion in January, this year post-secondary share sells.
Forbes report also says that one of the biggest beneficiaries of India’s demonetisation, Paytm has notched up 250 million registered users and 7 million transactions daily.
Paytm recently ranked 31 in Fast Company’s world 50 most innovative companies list.
The SoftBank-backed firm has also claimed to cross 68 million UPI transaction on its platform at a time when government-run BHIM and other platforms based on UPI witness a single-digit growth.
Additionally, the payment firm is also eying insurance, mutual fund, credit rating cards among other products through Paytm Money to up its ante in financial services.
Of the 2,208 billionaires in American business magazine’s 2018 list of the world’s richest, just 63 are under the age of 40 and more than half (34) are self-made entrepreneurs. In all, the 63 youngest billionaires in the world are worth a collective $265 billion, up from $208 billion last year.
The Top five richest personalities list has only one surprise Amazon boss Jeff Bezos who has been in competition with Microsoft founder topped the list as Bill Gates ranked at number 2.
Berkshire Hathaway head Warren Buffet at the age of 87 remains at 3rd position with over $87.3 billion assets and Bernard Arnault & family with $75.2 billion assets snatched the number 4 position.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg retained his 5th rank as of 2017.
With assets of $40.1 billion, Reliance Industries Limited head Mukesh Ambani has topped the list of Indian billionaire while stands at 19th position globally.
The US has 585 billionaires, whereas China and India give 373 and 121 billionaires respectively, this year on the Forbes tally.
Interestingly, eight Indian women have featured in this year’s Forbes list of the world’s richest people. Among the Indian women billionaires on the Forbes list, Savitri Jindal and family (Jindal Steel & Power Limited.) are the richest with a fortune of $8.8 billion. She is ranked 176th globally.
Globally, Alice Walton, the only daughter of Walmart Inc. founder Sam Walton, was the richest women billionaire with a net worth of $46 billion which is surprisingly more than the richest Indian in the current list
