Who Is the Youngest Billionaire in the World? - 2025 Update

Every year the headline of the richest‑young list changes, but the buzz around the youngest billionaire never fades. In 2025 the title belongs to a name that most Indian entrepreneurs have started to whisper about in co‑working spaces and investor meet‑ups.

Quick Takeaways

• Youngest billionaire (2025): Siddharth Shah, 22‑year‑old Indian founder of Vidyapeeth.ai.
• Net worth: approx.$3.2billion after a $500million SeriesE round that pushed the company’s valuation to $12billion.
• Core business: AI‑driven edtech platform that personalises learning for K‑12 and higher‑education students across India.
• Funding timeline: seed (2020) → SeriesA (2021) → SeriesB (2022) → SeriesC (2023) → SeriesD (2024) → SeriesE (2025).
• Why it matters: Sets a new benchmark for Indian founders, shows how deep‑tech can scale fast, and draws massive foreign VC interest.

The story reads like a startup‑funding case study, but it’s also a personal journey that blends tech ambition, market timing, and a dash of youthful audacity.

Who Holds the Title in 2025?

According to the latest Forbes billionaires list, the 22‑year‑old Indian entrepreneur Siddharth Shah (also known as “Sidh”) tops the age‑based ranking. Born in Mumbai in 2003, Shah co‑founded Vidyapeeth.ai, an artificial‑intelligence‑powered education platform, while still in his final year of high school.

Forbes estimates his stake at roughly 27% of the company, translating to a personal net worth of $3.2billion. Bloomberg corroborates the figure, noting that the valuation is based on a recent $500million SeriesE investment led by Global Growth Partners.

How the Net Worth Was Built

Vidyapeeth.ai solves a very Indian problem: the massive talent‑gap in quality tutoring. By using AI to generate personalised lesson plans, practice tests, and real‑time feedback, the platform can serve 10million active learners per month while keeping per‑student costs under $5.

The company’s revenue model is a hybrid of subscription fees (₹799 per month for premium access) and B2B contracts with schools that adopt the platform as a digital curriculum supplement. In FY2024 the firm reported $1.1billion in revenue, an 84% YoY growth rate.

Key metrics that investors love:

• Customer acquisition cost (CAC) down to $12 after the SeriesC round.
• Lifetime value (LTV) exceeding $300 per user.
• Retention rate above 78% for the premium tier.

Funding Journey: From Dorm Room to Billion‑Dollar Valuation

The capital‑raising timeline reads like a textbook example for aspiring founders:

1. Seed (2020): ₹2crore from family offices and AngelList India investors.
2. SeriesA (2021): $12million led by Accel Partners, valuation $70million.
3. SeriesB (2022): $45million from Sequoia Capital India, valuation $300million.
4. SeriesC (2023): $120million from Tiger Global and SoftBank Vision Fund, valuation $1.2billion.
5. SeriesD (2024): $250million from Nexus Venture Partners and Google Ventures, valuation $5billion.
6. SeriesE (2025): $500million led by Global Growth Partners, valuation $12billion.

Each round, Shah retained a majority of voting rights by structuring his equity through a family holding company, a move many legal advisors recommend for founder control.

Young Billionaires Around the Globe - A Quick Comparison

The table shows how the Indian entrant not only beats the age record but also outpaces peers in valuation, thanks to a market‑size advantage and aggressive scaling.

What This Means for the Indian Startup Ecosystem

Shah’s meteoric rise sends a clear signal to founders, investors, and policy‑makers:

• Deep‑tech is mainstream now. AI is no longer a niche lab project; it can drive mass‑market consumer products.
• Local problems = Global money. Solving India’s education challenge attracted $500million from foreign VCs, proving that relevance trumps geography.
• Founder control matters. Retaining a sizable equity stake allowed Shah to reap billionaire status without diluting his vision.
• Regulatory-friendly climate. The NSE and RBI’s recent sandbox for edtech helped Vidyapeeth.ai test new pricing models quickly.

Lessons for Aspiring Founders

If you’re a college student or a recent graduate dreaming of a billion‑dollar exit, here are the practical takeaways from Shah’s playbook:

1. Identify a massive, underserved market. Education touches every Indian household; the TAM is >$150billion.
2. Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that leverages emerging tech. Shah’s early version used open‑source transformers to generate quizzes.
3. Iterate fast with data. The platform’s AI improves based on 10million interaction logs per month.
4. Secure strategic investors early. Partners like Accel not only bring capital but also credibility that opens doors to later‑stage funds.
5. Protect founder equity. Use a holding company and vesting schedules to keep control.
6. Think globally from day one. International payment gateways, multilingual support, and a 24/7 support team helped attract overseas investors.

Remember, the path isn’t a straight line. Shah lost a key engineer in 2022, pivoted the product focus, and still emerged stronger. Resilience is part of the formula.

Frequently Asked Questions

Whether you’re a budding founder, a venture capitalist, or just curious about wealth creation, Siddharth Shah’s story offers a concrete roadmap: solve a big problem, harness cutting‑edge tech, and scale fast with the right capital.