Evening Standard
Teenager Nick D’Aloisio was up to £40million better off today - after selling a mobile app he designed in his bedroom to Yahoo.
Nick, 17, invented the Summly software which automatically reduces lengthy news stories and features to a user-friendly format on an iPhone.
Nick, who lives with his parents in Wimbledon, South West London, invented the app last January and it has already been downloaded almost a million times.
He said: “I honestly never expected any of this to happen. I started doing it as a hobby and I didn’t realise it was possible to make money out of it.
“I like shoes, I will probably buy a new pair of Nike trainers and I’ll probably get a new computer but at the moment I just want to save and bank it.
“I don’t have many living expenses.”
Nick is too young to be a company director but will work for Yahoo at their London offices while studying for three A-levels at Wimbledon’s King’s College school.
He first had the idea for Summly when he was studying for mock exams at home in 2011 and decided that it was “inefficient and time wasting” to click between various articles on Google.
Nick added: “I realised there was all this information on the web but it had not been ordered.
“That’s when I had the idea for an algorithm that would summarise the results of web searches automatically.”
The cost of the sale to Yahoo has not been disclosed but industry insiders said it would have been between £20million and £40million.
Because of his age, his fortune will have to be paid into a trust fund.
The first version of Summly was launched in July, 2011, and the surrounding publicity led to a flood of major international companies vying with each other to support the venture.
The big names included Chinese billionaire Li Ka-Shing, venture capital firm Horizon Ventures and individuals including Stephen Fry, Yoko Ono and US actor Ashton Kutcher.
In turn, Nick was then able to develop a much more sophisticated version of the app which has deals with 250 online publishers.
He said: “Hopefully, there will be a lot more entrepreneurs coming out of the UK who will start working with Silicon Valley.
“I launched five or six apps when there were only a few thousand and got got quite a lot of downloads.
"They were just simple, gimmicky apps but it was a learning experience.”
Nick has been off full-time school for six months and his business, based in Shoreditch, East London, now has 10 employees.
He said: “My friends at school have been extremely supportive. When I’m with them it’s just the normal banter. I don’t feel any different.”
Message from Nick posted on Summly website
In true Summly fashion, I will keep this short and sweet.
I am delighted to announce Summly has signed an agreement to be acquired by Yahoo!
Our vision is to simplify how we get information and we are thrilled to continue this mission with Yahoo!'s global scale and expertise.
After spending some time on campus, I discovered that Yahoo! has an inspirational goal to make people's daily routines entertaining and meaningful, and mobile will be a central part of that vision. For us, it's the perfect fit.
When I founded Summly at 15, I would have never imagined being in this position so suddenly.
I'd personally like to thank Li Ka-Shing and Horizons Ventures for having the foresight to back a teenager pursuing his dream.
Also to our investors, advisors and of course the fantastic team for believing in the potential of Summly.
Without you all, this never would have been possible. I'd also like to thank my family, friends and school for supporting me.
Most importantly, thank you to our wonderful users who have helped contribute to us receiving Apple's Best Apps of 2012 award for Intuitive Touch!
We will be removing Summly from the App Store today but expect our summarization technology will soon return to multiple Yahoo! products - see this as a ‘power nap' so to speak.
With over 90 million summaries read in just a few short months, this is just the beginning for our technology.
As we move towards a more refined, liberated and intelligent mobile web, summaries will continue to help navigate through our ever expanding information universe.
Other teenage sensations
Nick’s success echoes that of Adam Hildreth who was just 14 when he launched the Dubit Lit website, a social networking site for teenagers.
It made him £2million in five years and now Adam, of Leeds, is estimated to be worth £24million.
Cameron Johnson was just nine years old when he started his own business in Richmond, Virginia, selling invitation cards.
Cameron, now 28, used the profits to set up his own online company EZ Mail and he is worth an estimated £3.2million.
Brother and sister David and Catherine Cook were 17 and 15 respectively when they launched My Yearbook in 2005.
It survived the rival Facebook and the couple, from New Jersey, are together worth £6.5million.
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