Nikolay Storonsky (born 21 July 1984) is a Russian-born British-French entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of

Revolut Revolut Group Holdings Ltd, doing business as Revolut, is a British multinational neobank and fintech company that offers banking services for individuals and businesses. It was founded in July 2015 by British-Russian-French businessman Niko ...

and the founder of venture-capital fir
QuantumLight
Revolut is now operational in more than 35+ countries and serves 50 million customers. The company is valued at $45 Billion as of August 2024.

Early life and career

Storonsky was born on 21 July 1984 in Dolgoprudny, a town located about 20 kilometers North of Moscow's city centre. As a child, Storonsky boxed and swam, becoming a state champion later at his university. He is a kite surfer and a mountaineer in his free time. He started reading books on economics and business when he was six. His father, Nikolay Mironovich Storonsky, has been Deputy

General Director A director general, general director or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''general directors'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'') is a senior executive officer, often the chief executive officer ...

of Science for the natural gas research institute Gazprom Promgaz. He completed his

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in General and Applied physics at the

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT; , also known as PhysTech), is a public university, public research university located in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It prepares specialists in theoretical physics, theoretical and applied physics, ...

. He graduated with another Master's in Applied Economics and Finance at New Economic School in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. Storonsky started his career as an equity derivatives trader at

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1850. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merril ...

from 2006 - 2008 and later moved on to work at

Credit Suisse Credit Suisse Group AG (, ) was a global Investment banking, investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland. According to UBS, eventually Credit Suisse was to be fully integrated into UBS. While the integration ...

where he continued till 2013. Storonsky moved to England in 2004 and later acquired British citizenship. In 2024, he also acquired French citizenship. In 2022, Storonsky condemned the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

and renounced his Russian citizenship. In his open letter, he also pledged that Revolut will match every donation made to the Red Cross Ukraine in solidarity with victims of the war.

Revolut

Storonsky's experience as a trader led to him founding

in 2015 together with Vladyslav Yatsenko. The idea of the company came when, while travelling, he experienced the transaction fees and commissions levied by banks. His first idea was a multi-currency bank card that would allow currency conversion while traveling at a favorable rate. The Revolut platform allows travellers to spend in over 90 countries. Revolut offers accounts and debit cards for fee-free spending abroad at real exchange rates. In 2021, Revolut became the most valuable fintech firm in the UK. As per the 2023 annual report, Revolut achieved a revenue of 1.8 billion GBP, with a net profit of 344 million GBP. As of November 2024, the company serves 50 million customers globally and has more than 10,000 employees. The company is valued at $45 Billion as of August 2024.

QuantumLight Capital

In 2022, Storonsky launched QuantumLight, a quantitative venture capital firm relying on algorithms and artificial intelligence over human input to source deals. QuantumLight developed a proprietary AI system named “Aleph”, to identify promising investment opportunities. QuantumLight claims that Aleph tracks the entire universe of venture-backed companies since the ’90s, to determine "robust and stable success patterns". QuantumLight supports startup founders by sharing Storonsky's best practices for building high-performance scale-ups, influenced by his experience as the founder of Revolut. The firm began publicising some of these best practices with the launch of "Driving High Performance" in September 2024. The book was widely publicised and shared in the technology community, being referenced by investors such as Index Ventures and large publications like Forbes and Fortune. As of November 2024, QuantumLight’s disclosed portfolio includes: ThanksBen, Builder.io, Deepscribe, Ghost, MarqVision, Mesh, Monta, RadAI, RobinAI.

Awards and recognitions

Storonsky made the 2022

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

Billionaires List with an estimated wealth of $7.1 billion and occupied the 336th position. Welp Magazine also named him in the following lists: '101 UK Founder & CEO’s To Follow in 2022' and '101 UK CEO’s To Follow in 2022'. He also made to the list of Time100 Next 2024 published by the Time Magazine. Storonsky also featured 8th in the Fintech Top 100 Leaders for 2025 by Fintech Magazine.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Storonsky, Nikolay 1984 births Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology alumni New Economic School alumni Living people British businesspeople British billionaires British financial company founders British technology company founders 20th-century British businesspeople 21st-century British businesspeople Former Russia citizens Russian emigrants to the United Kingdom Russian businesspeople in the United Kingdom People who lost Russian citizenship People who renounced Russian citizenship Financial technology company founders