Kyle
16 year old founder of Summly, Nick D'Aloisio Is Said To Be The Youngest Person To Ever Secure Venture Capital
At London’s Web Summit being held this week in the UK, it was revealed that Nick D’Aloisio, the creator of iPhone app Summly, had received $300,000 in venture capital from Asia’s Horizon Ventures. Horizon Ventures is led by Li Ka-Shing, Asia’s richest person. It’s being reported that Aloisio is the youngest person ever to secure venture capital.
Summly is an iPhone app that summarizes and condenses search results and web pages. D’Aloisio developed this app out of necessity while he was studying for a history exam for school. He started to notice that his Google searches weren’t yielding quality results.
More after the break
“I would click on a result and realize it was irrelevant and there was this back and forth process,” D’Aloisio said at the London Web Summit.
According to D’Aloisio, Horizon sought him out. He got the call from them while he was still 15 and vacationing in Portugal with his friends. He admits to not disclosing his age on that first phone call. However, after talking with him for a few weeks Horizon went ahead with the investment anyway.
During D’Aloisio’s appearance at the London Web Summit, TechCrunch’s European Editor, Mike Butcher asked him if he was ever tempted to use Horizon’s money to go out and party, To that D’Aloisio said “We have to get clearance each time we want to do any spending.”
Source: MarketWatch
