- Leonid Radvinsky purchased OnlyFans, an grownup material platform, in 2018 for an undisclosed sum.
- He’s amassed an approximated $1.2 billion fortune from webcam porn and grownup sites.
- Radvinsky has gained more than $500 million from OnlyFans since 2020.
Leonid Radvinsky is far from a household name. The Ukrainian-American has lengthy operated in the shadows of the porn market, but edged into the highlight in 2018 when he acquired OnlyFans.
The subscription-based adult written content system was started in the British isles by Tim Stokely in 2016 right before Radvinsky took handle.
It appears to have proved a profitable expense. OnlyFans grew exponentially for the duration of the pandemic, with its person foundation much more than doubling to 188 million last year, its once-a-year report says. The system usually takes a 20% minimize of creators’ revenues and Radvinsky has raked in much more than $500 million considering that 2020.
OnlyFans is not his to start with foray into the planet of grownup material. After emigrating with his spouse and children from Ukraine to Chicago, he established up a corporation named Cybertania at the age of 17. It ran a selection of web-sites in the early 2000s that marketed “hacked” and “illegal” passwords to porn internet sites, Forbes described previous calendar year.
Password Universe, one of the web sites, involved a url to a site that marketed a lot more than 10,000 “illegal pre-teen passwords” in 2000. An additional, Ultra Passwords, claimed to url to “the best bestiality web site on the internet,” according to Forbes.
There was not any evidence suggesting the web-sites really joined to unlawful content, for each Forbes, but it seemed to be a way to create money from the affiliate backlinks when buyers clicked on them.
Radvinsky’s following venture arrived in 2002 when he established up MyFreeCams, a porn internet site that showcased “models” who acquired naked and made available sexual performances on webcams. By 2010, his web-site had a lot more than 100,000 products and additional than 5 million users, in accordance to adult field news site XBiz.
Radvinsky, 40, graduated from Northwestern College in 2002 with a diploma in economics and continued to create his empire by snapping up other porn-associated area names these kinds of as ultraxxxpasswords.com.
Ultra Passwords, which trademark submitting documents clearly show was described as an on the internet “bulletin board” of passwords for adult websites, pulled in $1.8 million a year in profits in the 2000s, described Forensic Information, an investigative journalism web page.
Radvinsky continued to invest in more porn-connected area names. He owned at least 950 together with URLs these as sexhackers.com and camwhores.com until eventually 2014, area identify information present.
As of April, Forbes estimated his net well worth to be $1.2 billion, with belongings such as a mansion in Florida and a penthouse apartment in Chicago.
Minor is recognized about Radvinsky’s private lifetime or actions aside from what he has disclosed on his private internet site, while it exhibits he has fingers in a lot of pies. He supports open up-resource application platforms and is an active philanthropist and angel investor.
Radvinsky donated $5 million to Ukraine reduction efforts previously this calendar year as effectively as supplying resources to a cancer charity, animal welfare business, and a pores and skin ailment analysis fund.
He has invested in the Israeli computer software developer B4X, and backed the social community software creator Pleroma. By way of his undertaking cash fund called Leo, Radvinsky offers investments of up to $1 million to company founders.
Radvinsky also needs to turn into a helicopter pilot. He is notched up 95 flight hours and is part of a crew that operates a helicopter facility termed Vertiport in downtown Chicago.
In the meantime, he is aiming to develop into loaded enough to “just one working day be in a placement to sign The Supplying Pledge“, in accordance to his web site. The list of super-abundant individuals who have promised to donate most of their fortunes to charitable ventures incorporate Monthly bill Gates, Warren Buffett and MacKenzie Scott.
These lofty heights are all some length from the environment of grownup entertainment, which has provided Radvinsky a few lawful problems more than the many years.
His to start with company, Cybertania, was sued by Microsoft in 2004 for allegedly sending “tens of millions” of illegal and misleading e-mails to consumers of Hotmail, its e mail support. The lawsuit claimed e-mail were “falsely labeled” as currently being despatched by Amazon, but Forbes claimed that Radvinsky denied all the allegations and that the situation was settled out of courtroom.
A further lawsuit filed by OnlyFans creators in opposition to Radvinsky and Meta in February claimed that he and OnlyFans bribed executives at Meta to blacklist articles creators who labored with rivals and place them on an worldwide databases, BBC Information noted. A spokesperson instructed the BBC at the time that the promises experienced no merit and Meta also denied the allegations.
Attorneys symbolizing OnlyFans submitted a movement to dismiss the lawsuit in Oct arguing that it lacked a “reasonable evidentiary basis” as it relied upon anonymous resources and e-mail. The situation is ongoing.
OnlyFans declined to comment when contacted by Insider.