(Bloomberg) — Taavet Hinrikus turned his startup into the one of the world’s biggest digital-payment firms, giving returns of about 35,000% to early investors including Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures.
Now Wise Plc’s co-founder wants to help other startups expand rapidly as he looks to boost his personal investments in early-stage companies across his home region of Europe.
“I spent the past 10 years building one iconic European company,” Hinrikus, 40, said in a recent telephone interview from London. “In the next 10 years, I would love to have 100 or even 1,000 similar iconic companies come around.”
In October, Hinrikus sold an 81.5 million-pound ($110 million) stake in London-based Wise after offloading almost $50 million of the shares when it went public in July. He still owns stock worth more than $650 million.
The Estonia native, who stepped down as Wise’s chairman in December, made his first early-stage investment around 2008. Since then, he’s backed more than 100 European startups in the the Netherlands, Germany, France and elsewhere. Some of his latest bets were in Estonian energy-storage firm Skeleton Technologies and U.K. contract-automation platform Juro this year, as well as trading app Lightyear in 2021.
He’s already picking up big gains from some of his earlier investments, including a more than 700% return from a stake in Estonia transport company Bolt he acquired in 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“I want to make sure Europe has a great chance,” Hinrikus said. “Silicon Valley has a 50-year head start.”
Other tech founders from Europe are bolstering their early-stage investments. UiPath Inc. founder Daniel Dines, 50, last year bought stakes in Serbian cybersecurity firm Trickest and German digital-health company Avi Medical Inc., while Checkout.com’s Guillaume Pousaz, 40, recently boosted his bet on Irish e-commerce business Wayflyer.
They have net worths of $4.1 billion and $19.4 billion, respectively, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Hinrikus started Wise — previously known as TransferWise — in 2010 with fellow Estonia native Kristo Kaarmann. The pair raised $6 million in series A funding during 2013 from investors including Thiel’s venture capital firm to value their startup at $23.2 million, according to PitchBook. Since its direct listing, Wise shares have fallen by a third, putting the company’s market value at about $8 billion.
Read more: Wise Founders Turn Bank Fee Frustration Into $3 Billion Fortune
Hinrikus said he’s currently considering “multiple things in climate,” as a possible investment. “It’s a little bit early to talk about,” he added.
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