Hany Rashwan ( ar, هاني رشوان; born May 7, 1990) is an Egyptian businessman,

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

, and computer engineer. He is the founder of

crypto Crypto commonly refers to: * Cryptocurrency, a type of digital currency secured by cryptography and decentralization * Cryptography, the practice and study of hiding information Crypto or Krypto may also refer to: Cryptography * Cryptanalysis, ...

company 21.co, which is the parent company of 21Shares. He previously founded social commerce company

Ribbon A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of natural materials such as silk, cotton, and jute and of synthetic mater ...

and enterprise fintech company Payout.

Early life and education

Rashwan was born in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

and grew up in

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

. His grandfather, a career intelligence officer in the Egyptian army and an expert at cryptography and programming, bought Rashwan his first computer aged 11 and taught him basic programming. After moving to the United States for high school, he built two gaming sites aged 14, with one attracting 600,000 unique annual visitors and advertising revenue. He attended

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

to study economics and computer science, before transferring to

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. In 2017, he was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Enterprise Technology category for his work on Payout.

Companies

Kolena

While an undergraduate, Rashwan built Kolena (meaning "all of us" in Arabic), an online interactive town-hall using

Facebook Connect The Facebook Platform is the set of services, tools, and products provided by the social networking service Facebook for third-party developers to create their own applications and services that access data in Facebook. The current Facebook ...

that was used by tens of thousands of Egyptians during the Egyptian revolution. In an interview, Rashwan envisioned Kolena serving as “Egypt’s online interactive Town Hall Meeting…a place for people to go to submit and vote on ideas for change."

Ribbon

Ribbon was a payments

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

that let users sell online using a shortened URL that can be shared across email, social media and a seller's own website. The service focuses on bringing integrated checkouts directly to platforms like

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

, and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

letting buyers purchase without leaving those services. Ribbon has been featured in publications including

Techcrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

, The Next Web, and ArsTechnica. After the company announced support for "in-stream" payments on Twitter, allowing buyers to purchase items without leaving the Twitter.com stream,

shut down Ribbon's API access after approximately an hour and a half.

Payout

Founded in late 2014, Payout provides online lenders with a payouts, disbursements and compliance API that is used by top online lenders such as LendUp and

Prosper {{wiktionary, prosper Prosper may refer to: __NOTOC__ Places in the United States * Prosper, Minnesota, an unincorporated community * Prosper, North Dakota, an unincorporated community * Prosper, Oregon, an unincorporated community * Prosper, Texa ...

. Lenders are able to push money to consumers' credit cards in real-time. The company moved more than $50 million in loans by its second year. Payout went through the

AngelPad AngelPad is an American seed-stage startup incubator, launched in September 2010 by Thomas Korte and Carine Magescas with six other former Google employees as mentors. AngelPad provides mentorship, seed money, and networking at two 10-week cours ...

accelerator and subsequently raised $4.75 million, led by

Tim Draper Timothy Cook Draper (born June 11, 1958) is an American venture capital investor, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ),

Draper Associates Timothy Cook Draper (born June 11, 1958) is an American venture capital investor, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ),

21.co

Founded in 2018, 21.co (formerly Amun) aims to build bridges into the

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...

world. Its subsidiary 21Shares AG launched the first physically-backed cryptocurrency

Exchange-traded product An exchange-traded product (ETP) is a regularly priced security which trades during the day on a national stock exchange. ETPs may embed derivatives but it is not a requirement that they do so - and the investment memorandum (or offering documents ...

(ETP) called HODL in November 2018 on the

SIX Swiss Exchange SIX Swiss Exchange (formerly SWX Swiss Exchange), based in Zurich, is Switzerland's principal stock exchange (the other being Berne eXchange). SIX Swiss Exchange also trades other security (finance), securities such as Swiss government bonds and d ...

. The company is today one of the largest issuers of crypto exchange-traded products. In addition to 21Shares ETFs, 21.co also owns tokens platform Amun as well as its own proprietary platform Onyx, which is used to issue and operate crypto ETPs for the company and third parties. A $4 million seed round was raised in March 2019. Investors include

Cathie Wood Catherine Duddy Wood (born November 26, 1955) is an American investor and the founder, CEO and CIO of Ark Invest, an investment management firm. Early life and education Wood was born in Los Angeles, the eldest child of immigrants from Irel ...

and

Graham Tuckwell Graham and Graeme may refer to: People * Graham (given name), an English-language given name * Graham (surname), an English-language surname * Graeme (surname), an English-language surname * Graham (musician) (born 1979), Burmese singer * Clan G ...

. In September 2022, the company announced a second round of $25 million raised at a $2 billion valuation, with company "on a nine-figure revenue run-rate

ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometres, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is immediatel ...

sustained inflows, even during down markets." The company announced recording $650 million in net new assets, with assets under management peaking in 2021 at $3 billion. "Swiss Crypto ETP Giant With Cathie Wood Links, 21.co Claims $2 Billion Value After Funding"
Forbes.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rashwan, Hany Living people 1990 births American Internet company founders Columbia University alumni Egyptian emigrants to the United States