The 27-year-old founder of Huben sits on a fortune estimated at billions of pounds

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The 27-year-old founder of one of Britain’s fastest-growing startups could be worth £2 billion after his two-year-old company received a $7.8 billion (£5.6 billion) valuation.

Johnny Povarat, an Australian-born entrepreneur who founded virtual events company Hoppen in 2019, became Britain’s youngest self-made billionaire earlier this year after his startup reached $5.65 billion in March.

In a new funding round announced Thursday, Hoppen said it raised another $450 million from investors, bringing the total increase to more than $1 billion. Its service allows companies to host virtual events, conferences, and panel discussions, with audience members able to network or ask questions to speakers.

Mr Boufarhat, who moved to the UK to study engineering at the University of Manchester, founded Hoppen just over two years ago. The company operates almost entirely remotely, with no physical offices or headquarters. After attending university in Dubai in Manchester, Povarhat fell ill while preparing for a graduate job at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Bedridden, took over the coding of a video conferencing application. After being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and regaining his health, Mr. Povarat began looking for investors and launched Hoppen in January 2019.

Hoppen has become a star of the pandemic as companies have been forced to suspend physical events and trade fairs and instead look for virtual solutions.

The company has grown to more than 800 employees in 47 countries and has been used by more than 100,000 organizations in its short life.

According to company filings, Bouvarhat owned approximately 41% of Hobin’s shares as of June 4.

At his current valuation, his stake could be more valuable. Based on his current holding, Bouvarhat’s stake would be worth more than $3.1 billion (£2.2 billion). Funding may have diluted its share a bit. Hoppen did not respond to requests for comment on Bouvarat’s stake.

Born in Australia in 1994 to a Lebanese father and a Syrian-American mother, Mr. Boufarhat founded the Hoppen Company at the age of 24. The company had only eight employees at the start of 2020, but with the outbreak of the pandemic, it attracted a lot of interest.

Hoppen said its annual recurring revenue was about $100 million, up from $20 million last November.

There have been questions about whether the boom in virtual events can continue, as Hoppen said he is also investing in “mixed” events consisting of an in-person component and online elements.

“Houben plans to be where important conversations and contacts occur,” Boufarhat said.

The company has garnered support from some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, an early backer of Facebook, Salesforce, Slack, LinkedIn and private equity giant Tiger Global.

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