Young tech tycoons are building great wealth

To consider how the accumulation of wealth in Australia is changing rapidly, look at brash young 35-year-old billionaire Adrian Portelli.

Just six years ago, Portelli was nowhere to be found on The Australian’s annual examination of the rich elite: The List – Australia’s Richest 250.

Portelli is the owner of a promotions business called LMCT+ and is best known for his publicity stunts and love of fast cars, which came together that famous time in May last year when he had his $2m McLaren Senna GTR hoisted by crane into his $39m penthouse apartment on the 57th floor of a Melbourne high-rise.

He grabbed headlines again this month when he splashed out $15.03m snapping up all five homes on offer at reality renovation TV show The Block’s auction day.

Behind all that, Portelli is driven by data and spreadsheets and in reality is a bit of a tech nerd – albeit with tattoos, those fast cars and a growing collection of trophy assets such as a new corporate jet he took delivery of in March.

And an extremely profitable business.

Portelli’s LMCT+ is booming, with far more than 100,000 subscribers paying between $19.99 and $99.99 a month for the chance to win cars, boats, cash and other giveaways, and also to use their memberships on discounts at hundreds of retail partners.

Along with Portelli’s other assets, it adds up to an estimated fortune of $1.3bn, enough for him to join the ranks of the Richest 250 for the first time earlier this year.

Portelli also illustrates how the members of The List are getting younger.

There are now 20 people among the Richest 250 aged 40 and under, proof that being online, using social media and working hard can make you wealthier at a faster pace than any time in Australia’s history.

Social media, cryptocurrency, online gambling and sweepstakes businesses, currency trading and software start-ups, graphic design companies that go viral – and global – quicker than at any time in history.

They are all trends that have markedly changed the face of Australian wealth in recent years.

Six editions ago, when I published our first Richest 250 list for The Australian, there were only 11 people on it aged 40 and
under. That edition was released in March 2019; it was only a few months earlier in 2018 when Portelli started LMCT+.

But he came up with a clever business plan – basically a digital version of the old discount coupons you used to receive in the mail and constant giveaways – and married it with a huge social media presence to make a quick fortune.

Yet Portelli is not even close to being the youngest billionaire on the Richest 250. That label belongs to 28-year-old Edward Craven, co-founder of what is probably the biggest gambling company in the world by volume. And like Portelli’s LMCT+, it is less than a decade old.

Craven started his Stake.com cryptocurrency casino and sports book business with American business partner Bijan Tehrani in 2017. Stake.com has evolved into one of the biggest gambling entities globally, and in 2022 Craven and Tehrani created another valuable online company, the Kick streaming platform, which is growing quickly and has plans to rival global giant Twitch.

He’s not the only cryptocurrency gambling magnate on The List.

Tim Heath, 45, is based in Tallinn, Estonia, where he runs his successful and extremely profitable group based on online crypto sportsbooks and casinos, namely, Sportsbet.io and Bitcasino.io.

Technology has been the biggest mover on The List in six years. There are now 28 members on the Richest 250 from the sector, not including some from e-commerce who are counted under retail. That technology number has doubled from 14 in 2019.

This article first appeared in The Australian.