The sharp increase in the share value of Affirm fintech company has led to the appearance of the world’s new billionaire, RBC reports with a link to Forbes.

Affirm went public on NASDAQ on January 12 at $49 a share - an implied valuation of $11.9 billion. Shares shot up $97,24 %, lifting its market value to an eye-popping $23.6 billion.

As a result, the 11% stake in the company belonging to Max Levchin, one of the founders of Affirm, is now worth $2.7 billion, making him fintech’s newest billionaire.

Levchin was born and raised in Kiev and moved to the United States at the age of 16. He is one of the founders of PayPal online payment system, the history of which began with his acquaintance with Peter Thiel, former CEO of PayPal. The friends founded Confinity software company. It allowed sending money electronically via e-mails, and almost immediately started working with e-auctions, particularly with eBay. Soon, Confinity merged with X.com financial company owned Elon Musk, who was not famous back then. The combined company was called PayPal.

In 2012, Levchin decided to become the CEO of Affirm, since he saw great prospects for the project. At the early stage of testing, the service showed a large increase in the number of transactions. According to Levchin, together with the team, they wanted to “create financial products that would be simple and understandable, with transparent and fair pricing mechanisms.”

Affirm lets people make online purchases and pay them off in regular installments. The company says that they do not charge penalties for late payments, and the users can choose their payment schedule.

The company has already completed nine rounds of funding. The company went on to raise about $1.5 billion in funding from investors. There are 23 companies among Affirm investors.

Today, the platform is used by more than 6.5 thousand merchants, including Nike, Adidas, Dyson, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Peloton and others.

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