Under the title "The Youngest Billionaire in Britain: A Young Arab Origin and His Incredible Wealth," the Al Arabiya website reported that the young Arab descendant, Johnny Bou Farhat (26 years old), has made headlines in British newspapers as the youngest self-made billionaire after he started a virtual business that allowed millions of people to work from home, resulting in a fortune estimated in billions of dollars.
The young entrepreneur raised funding to launch the video conferencing app "Hopin" in March after the first lockdown in Britain, according to British media. Following the pandemic, Hopin's user base soared to over five million, giving it a valuation of £4.1 billion, with American Express and Hewlett Packard among its clients.
The idea began in a bedroom in London after he graduated in 2018, having been bedridden due to an autoimmune disease at the age of 21. Bou Farhat began coding the software that allows for live streaming of conferences online, and over the next two years, the project grew into a small team of eight developers.
In November 2019, right before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bou Farhat told investors, "This will be the fastest growing company in the world." Hopin's sales reached £54 million in the year ending January 2021 and are expected to hit £130 million this year.
Bou Farhat lives in Barcelona with his fiancée, who works with him, as the company has no offices, while most of its 500 employees are based in the United States and Britain. Bou Farhat told the Sunday Times, "I am deeply focused on work. I just want to be as impactful as I can, and in a positive way for the world."
The high valuation of the company has pushed Bou Farhat's fortune to £1.5 billion, making him ranked 113th on the Sunday Times Rich List, the list of the wealthiest individuals in Britain. The young graduate from the University of Manchester stated, "The idea came about two years before the pandemic started, although I was unable to secure any funds to implement it."
It is worth noting that Bou Farhat was born in Australia to parents from Lebanon and Armenia before moving to Britain in his teenage years, where he later earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and management from the University of Manchester, during which he developed a discount app for students, according to Bloomberg.
