The Teen, The Billionaire And The Revolutionary Search Tool: Teenager Sells His Mobile Startup To Yahoo! For $30 Million

It’s all in a day’s work for 18-year-old It’s all in a day’s work for 18-year-old Nick D'Aloisio. “Yeah, this is really happening,” he said in an interview to confirm he had sold his company, Summly, to Internet giant Yahoo! for approximately $40 million, mostly in cash.

D’Aloisio sounded electrified. Three years ago the then-15-year-old created an app for the iPhone. The app was released under the name “Trimit,” and was a slow burn. But eventually, it got the attention of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka Shing. Li’s investment team at Horizons Venture funded D'Aloisio's company, and helped the young entrepreneur spruce up his app, re-naming it Summly and bringing on a smorgasbord of celebrity endorsers, including Ashton Kucher, Stephen Fry and Yoko Ono.


A few months ago, he sold his app for 30 million dollars to Yahoo. Summly’s app will now be taken off Apple’s App Store, and D’Aloisio himself will become a full-time employee of Yahoo. He won’t have a title, but will be working with the company’s mobile team based out of his home in Wimbledon, London.
D’Aloisio said he would continue juggling his school commitments and a full-time job at Yahoo, though he didn’t know if he’d be subject to Yahoo’s new work-from-home policy.

Having taken more than a year off high school, he will be going back to finish the final year-and-a-half of his A-Levels, before going on to university.