Leonid Radvinsky

The secretive billionaire owner of OnlyFans, a platform that lets creators sell erotic content directly to users, Leonid Radvinsky, has died of cancer at age 43, the company shared yesterday(More details: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/leonid-radvinsky-onlyfans-owner-cancer-death-age-43).

After running online porn ventures ever since he was a teenager, Radvinsky in 2018 bought a majority stake in the British site OnlyFans, which he then steered to become one of the UK's top startups.

It’s credited with disrupting the notoriously exploitative porn industry by enabling adult video stars, sex workers, or anyone looking for a salacious side hustle to make explicit content independently. But…OnlyFans has also faced controversy over its own exploitative content and tried pivoting towards PG creators. The platform banned erotica in 2021 after pressure from banks processing its payments, but quickly reversed the decision in response to user backlash.

The erotic marketplace connecting millions of creators with over 300 million users is a massively lucrative enterprise:

* Taking a 20% cut from creators’ proceeds yielded OnlyFans $7.2 billion in revenue for the 2024 financial year.

* The company paid Radvinsky hundreds of millions in dividends over the years, which the limelight-averse entrepreneur used to support philanthropic causes like cancer research.

Before his death, Radvinsky was in talks to sell a 60% stake in OnlyFans’ parent, in a deal that would’ve valued the company at $8 billion.