RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Two young Brazilians have been named to Forbes’ 2022 Billionaires list. Pedro Franceschi, 25, and Henrique Dubugras, 26, are co-founders of corporate credit card startup Brex.
According to the rankings released Tuesday, the duo was included in the list because their Silicon Valley-founded startup was valued at US$12.3 billion. Each of them has assets of US$1.5 billion.
According to the magazine, Brex is not the only unicorn whose founders became billionaires this year. Globally, 30 startups reached a valuation of more than US$10 billion in 2021, twice as many as in 2020.
Franceschi and Dubugras met on Twitter during a discussion about programming when they were high school students. They became friends even though they lived in different states: Franceschi was from Rio de Janeiro and Dubugras was from São Paulo.
At the age of 19, the two founded the startup Pagar.me, which allowed merchants to accept payments online. In 2016, the company was sold to Stone.
The entrepreneurs studied for two semesters at Stanford University but dropped out of computer science to pursue business. In 2017, the young men founded Brex.
The San Francisco-based company has made a name for itself in the U.S. market by offering corporate credit cards to other startups and innovative companies like Airbnb and Class Pass.
Since its inception, the business model has expanded to small, traditional businesses as well. According to TechCrunch, Brex is on track to double its revenue by 2021.
Forbes highlighted Brazilians among the 12 youngest billionaires in the world. In addition to the Brazilian duo, the magazine lists 2,668 billionaires, a lower total than last year: 329 people were downgraded, the highest number of decreases since 2009.
The total wealth of billionaires also shrank to US$12.7 trillion, down from US$13.1 trillion in 2021.
On the other hand, there are 169 newcomers like Rihanna, who became rich thanks to her investments in the cosmetics company Fenty Beauty and lingerie brand Savage X Fenty.
Rihanna thus put Barbados on Forbes’ list of countries with billionaires for the first time.
Check out who are the richest people in the world according to Forbes
Leading the ranking is Elon Musk, whose fortune was estimated at US$219 billion in March. Although he is already ranked as the richest man in the world in other lists such as Bloomberg’s, this is the first time Musk has topped the Forbes survey.
Musk thus overtook Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, whose fortune shrank by $6 billion in the latest list.
- Elon Musk
(Tesla and SpaceX): US$219 billion - Jeff Bezos
(Amazon): US$171 billion - Bernard Arnault and family
(Louis Vuitton): US$158 billion - Bill Gates
(Microsoft): US$129 billion - Warren Buffett
(Berkshire Hathaway) US$118 billion