Telegram is the only bootstrapped 1B+ active user product in the world.
– ~30-40 “core” employees
– $30B valuation
– 1.3B monthly active users
– Founder is the 2nd most decorated International Olympiad winner of all time with 7 medals (4G/3S/0B) across math (IMO) and cs (IOI)
– ~$1.5-2B revenue last year, with a business across advertising (14%), subscriptions (26%), crypto (34%) and more
– HQd in Dubai and domiciled in the British Virgin Islands
It’s the only business to be self-funded and needed the fewest users to get to global scale.
We talk a lot about 1 person $1B companies but Telegram is a 30 person $30B company!