Ben Pasternak, the co-founder of the social media company Monkey, has a whopping net worth of $2 million.
At just 15 years old, he founded the company Monkey, a social media app enabling teenagers to video chat with like-minded people.
Before that, at the age of 14, he founded an e-commerce company, Flogg, which was also a social networking app for youngsters to buy and sell.
Pasterak’s recent business venture is SIMULATE, an American food technology company. Thus, from all these projects, the entrepreneur has managed to amass a notable fortune.
Ben Pasternak’s net worth is in the multi-millions from a successful career so far!
Hailing from Sydney, Australia, the entrepreneur began developing software when he was 13. When he was 15, bored in class, he designed an app called ‘Impossible Rush’ and started chatting online about it with an American friend, Austin Valleskey, who is also an iOS engineer.
Valleskey and Pasternak, who had met through the Facebook group High School Hackers, began working on the app.
New York-based social media marketer Carlos Fajardo agreed to buy the app for $200 and then co-founded ‘Impossible Dial,’ which he later sold for $56K(AUD85,000).
The teenage tech entrepreneur dropped out of high school and moved to New York. There, he launched his company, ‘Flogg,’ a social media marketplace for teens, after accepting venture capital funding.
It also became a major success when Binary Capital, a US venture capital firm, agreed to lead a round of funding, and other investors joined the venture.
In late 2016, tech enthusiasts started working to build ‘Monkey,’ an app that enables teenagers to video chat with like-minded people. Monkey had raised $2 million in funding and had over 20 million users, allowing over 20 billion calls.
Later, in 2018, a Chinese firm, Holla, acquired Monkey for an undisclosed sum. Following this, he launched his third startup, ‘SIMULATE,’ with Sam Terris.
With a mission to upgrade the world to a positive food system, it launched its first product, NUGGS, a vegan chicken nugget substitute. In 2021, NUGGS was on track for $8 million in revenue that year.
Furthermore, SIMULATE also raised over $15 million from McCain Foods, Alexis Ohanian, and Lerer Hippeau.
Well, these successful startups have definitely paid off, considering Ben Pasternak has a net worth in multi-millions.
He now enjoys a comfortable lifestyle, living on a 27th-floor, $4,200-a-month apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan.
Additional Information
- In 2016, Time named Ben Pasternak one of the world’s most influential teenagers and was also one of the honorees to be included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 List.
- Ben Pasternak, 25, was born on September 6, 1999, in Sydney, Australia, to his mom, Anna Pasternak, and his dad, Mark Pasternak.
- His father holds two bachelor’s degrees in architecture and a master’s degree. Mark worked as an architect before starting a new profession in property development.
- His mom is a university-educated. He grew up with his two younger siblings, Jake and Maya.
- Ben had a knack for business from a young age, as when he was in Year 5 in school, he wanted to sell one of those huge Chupa Chups (lollipop) boxes. After realizing it was a waste of his lunchtime, he hired another kid to sell them for 30 cents. He gave 10 cents to that kid, and he would get 20 cents.
