Afterpay

The founder

Nick Molnar built an eBay jewelry business as a teenager in Sydney before graduating from the University of Sydney. Anthony Eisen, an accountant by training, was Molnar’s neighbor. Together they co-founded Afterpay in 2014, pioneering buy-now-pay-later in Australia by letting shoppers pay in four interest-free installments.

How it was sold

Square Inc. (later renamed Block) announced its all-stock acquisition of Afterpay on August 1, 2021 at a deal value of roughly $29 billion — the largest acquisition in Australian corporate history at announcement. Because it was an all-stock deal, the effective value had fallen to around $13.9 billion by the time it closed in January 2022, as Square’s share price declined; Molnar became Australia’s youngest self-made billionaire at 30.