Who is Leonid Radvinsky — the cryptic owner of OnlyFans?

Profits at OnlyFans have increased dramatically over the previous year, and the revelation that its owner Leonid Radvinsky receiving more than $300 million (£238 million) in dividends has raised new concerns about the pornography tycoon.

Entrepreneur Leonid Radvinsky, 41, is a Ukrainian-American with a $2.1 billion estimated net worth.

Guy and Tim Stokely, a father and son combination who established the business with a £10,000 ($12,500) investment two years prior, sold it to him in 2018.

What do we know about him?

Radvinsky is a venture capitalist, philanthropist, and technology entrepreneur with "a special interest in emerging social media platforms," according to his LinkedIn.

On his own website, Radvinsky says he has spent the last two decades "building software companies and contributing to the open source movement", BBC reported.

Radvinsky says he donates "a huge amount of time, effort and money to non-profit causes," like charities and technological endeavours.

Outside of programming and philanthropy, he "is an avid reader who's always ready for a chess match and is an aspiring helicopter pilot," his website says.

When he was a little boy, his family relocated to the United States, where they eventually settled in Chicago, according to the Daily Telegraph. Although we are unsure of the specific location, he now calls "sunny Florida" home.

Radvinsky has also operated businesses related to the pornographic sector before OnlyFans.

At Northwestern University, close to Chicago, Illinois, Radvinsky majored in economics and received his degree there in 2002. The businessman has since started a number of ventures.

He developed a website referral company named Cybertania prior to being the sole stakeholder of OnlyFans' parent company, Fenix.

According to Forbes, the business offered users links to passwords for content, including pornography, beginning in the late 1990s.

Before stepping in to buy OnlyFans, he also owned a successful adult webcam business.

What is the company behind OnlyFans?

Fenix, the company that owns OnlyFans, is still registered in the UK, despite Radvinsky's location in the US,

OnlyFans has prospered while in Radvinsky's hands. Pre-tax profits during the time period increased to $525 million, from $432 million the previous year, according to the London-registered company in August 2023.

On OnlyFans, the number of creators has increased by 47% in the last year alone to almost 3.2 million, while the number of users has increased by 27% to approximately 239 million.

Regulators and governments have criticised the platform and are now paying more attention to its exploitative activities particularly subjected to teen girls.

According to a 2021 BBC news investigation, OnlyFans was unable to stop minors from purchasing and participating in pornographic movies.

At the time, OnlyFans claimed that their age verification procedures went above and beyond legal requirements.