Revolut is valued at $115bn. Its founder’s new share deal targets $500bn

Nik Storonsky wants a bigger slice of Revolut, and he has picked an ambitious price. The cofounder and chief executive is in talks over a new share award, the Financial Times reported. It would grow his stake if the fintech reaches a $500 billion valuation.

Storonsky owns about 29% of Revolut today. The new package would unlock shares in stages as the valuation climbs, the same structure Elon Musk uses at Tesla. It is not yet clear whether it adds to his existing deal or replaces it.

That existing deal is already generous. Storonsky said in December it would lift his stake to around 40% at a $200 billion valuation.

Why $500bn is a different number

The target is the eye-catching part. Revolut’s most recent secondary share sale valued it at $115 billion, at $2,017 a share, which put Storonsky’s holding above $36 billion. A $500 billion valuation would be more than four times that.

At that level Revolut would rank alongside Visa and ahead of every European public company bar the largest energy firms. Storonsky is aiming for a $200 billion valuation at a possible listing, which he thinks is at least two years away. The $500 billion figure sits far beyond even that.

A first for Europe

Uncapped, valuation-linked pay awards are common in the United States and rare elsewhere. Musk’s Tesla package is the reference point, and it is how he built his path toward a record fortune. Arm made a similar promise, offering chief executive Rene Haas $800 million if the chip designer reached a $2 trillion valuation. A deal on this scale in Europe would be a first.

It also lands while European venture capital argues about founder rewards. Index Ventures, one of Revolut’s backers, recently raised $2 billion as its own cofounder warned that some of the AI era’s winnings should be handed back. Storonsky is moving the other way, building a mechanism to capture far more.

The case for the number

Revolut’s year makes the ambition less far-fetched than it sounds. It won a full UK banking licence in March and a full Australian one in July, and has a pending US charter. It now serves 75 million customers across 40 countries. Pre-tax profit rose 57% to £1.7 billion on £4.5 billion of revenue.

The backers are heavyweight too. They include Index Ventures, Balderton, DST Global, Ribbit, Mubadala, and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. Storonsky also runs an investment vehicle on the side, the quantitative venture firm QuantumLight he founded in 2023.

The unanswered questions

Two things are still open. It is unclear whether Revolut deserves a valuation like Visa’s, and whether Storonsky’s board believes he should be paid like Musk. Both are the kind of question that only a public listing settles.

For now the plan is talks, not a signed award. But it sets the marker Storonsky is aiming at. Revolut is worth $115 billion today. He is negotiating as if it will be worth more than four times that.