Fintech entrepreneurs Blomfield and Storonsky join list of super-rich

Blomfield’s stake in Monzo is valued at £140m while Storonksy has a net worth of at least £363m.

Monzo co-founder Tom Blomfield and Revolut founder Nikolay Storonsky have made it into the Sunday Times List Rich List for the first time, indicating the growing status of the UK fintech scene.

Blomfield’s stake in Monzo, which he co-founded in 2015, is valued at £140m, on the back of a £2bn valuation of the business- however, Monzo’s latest fundraising could cut its value to around £1.2bn.

Blomfield, a 34-year-old Oxford graduate who is CEO of Monzo, comes in at number 858 on the rich list, which charts the 1,000 wealthiest people or families resident in the UK ranked by net wealth.

Russian-born Storonsky, now a British citizen, 35, who founded Revolut in 2015 and is also CEO, comes in ahead of Blomfield at number 361 on the list, with his stake in Revolut now worth at least £363m.

In February this year, Revolut raised $500m in a fresh round of funding valuing the company at $5.5bn.

Also included in the list is Monzo co-founder Peter Rippon, coming in at 982 on the list, with a value of £120m.

Rippon announced on LinkedIn in January that he was stepping back from Monzo to spend more time with his wife, Debbie, and their 300 alpacas.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Rippon pointed out that it is a fortune, but only on paper as it is 98-99 per cent tied up in Monzo stock.

Overall, the list reveals that the coronavirus pandemic has erased £54bn from the wealth of Britain’s richest in the past two months.

It also reveals that at least 63 on the list-including 20 billionaires- have sought to furlough some of their staff under the taxpayer-backed scheme.

Monzo is furloughing staff and Blomfield is forgoing his salary for 12 months to ease the impact of the virus.

Storonsky is also forgoing his salary for a year while Revolut has also offered staff the opportunity to swap a portion of their salary for shares.

Youngest on the list is Ben Francis, the 27-year-old university dropout who founded the athleisure brand Gymshark.