Privileged Irish teenagers make dotcom millions
Two Irish teenage brothers have become overnight millionaires after they sold their fledgling software start-up. Interestingly, one of them is still at secondary school. Patrick Collison, 19, and his brother John, 17, are two of the four major shareholders in the firm Auctomatic. It’s a US-registered company estimated to be worth £2.5m.
A former winner of Ireland’s BT Young Scientist of the Year, Patrick Collison, confirmed he & his brother indeed had become millionaires after their firm was bought by Live Current Media, the Canadian firm. Two large US Internet firms are also understood to have bid against it that jacked up the value of the Limerick-based business.
Auctomatic offers web-based software, mostly for heavy users of the popular eBay auction site, helping them to manage inventory in a more efficient manner. The service was only launched last summer. The two brothers formed Auctomatic in early 2007, but they were not able to secure funding from either any private Irish investors, or the state investment body, Enterprise Ireland. Instead, they got backing from California’s Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator.
Patrick Collison will now work with Live Current, while his brother appears for his school-leaving examination in Limerick. Live Current boasted a turnover of close to £5bn in 2006 and a market capitalisation of £35m. It owns internet addresses like perfume.com, brazil.com and cricket.com.
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