Nick D'Aloisio
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Nick D'Aloisio | |
|---|---|
 D'Aloisio at LeWeb London 2012 Central Hall Westminster | |
| Born | 1 November 1995 |
| Nationality | British-Australian |
| Occupation(s) | Computer programmer, entrepreneur |
| Known for | Mobile applications |
Nick D'Aloisio (born November 1, 1995)[1] is a British-Australian entrepreneur, computer programmer and designer who has become known for the creation of Summly and its technology.[2] D'Aloisio has been recognised as the youngest person to receive a round of venture capital in technology at just 15 years of age [3][4]. D'Aloisio's business partners include Li Ka-Shing, Rupert Murdoch, Ashton Kutcher, Stephen Fry, Yoko Ono and Mark Pincus, among others.
Personal life
D'Aloisio was born in London in 1995 to parents Diana and Lou. He lived in both Melbourne and Perth. D'Aloisio grew up in London, United Kingdom, attending King's College School, in Wimbledon where he received an Academic Scholarship. He is still based in London. His mother Diana D'Aloisio (born 1959)[5] is a lawyer and his father Lou Montilla is vice president at Morgan Stanley.[6]
Summly
D'Aloisio received his first computer at 9 and used it to create movies with editing tools such as Final Cut Pro. D'Aloisio began writing apps at the age of 12 in 2008.
D'Aloisio created the Trimit application for iOS in March 2011, which used an analytical tool to condense text content into 1000, 500, or 140-character summary text.[7] The app caught the attention of Apple who featured Trimit as a new and noteworthy application on the App Store in July 2011.[8] The potential of Trimit attracted the attention of Hong Kong based billionaire Li Ka-shing, who provided D'Alosio with US$300,000 in venture capital funding.[9] D'Alosio used the feedback and criticism from Trimit to completely re-design the application, and re-launched it in December 2011, as Summly.[10] As of March, 2013 Summly was sold to Yahoo for a reported $30 million US dollars.[11]
Summly aimed to solve perceived problems with the way news articles are presented on smartphones,[12] with initial version of Summly being downloaded by over 200,000 users.[13] As a result of the corporate support,[14] in November, 2012, D'Alosio received US$1,000,000 in new venture funding for Summly from several international celebrities such as Yoko Ono, Ashton Kutcher and Stephen Fry, in addition to Hong Kong business mogul Li Ka-shing.[15]
Summly's cover page images were created by world-renowned visual artist/photographer Kevin Abosch.[16]
Investment
At the age of 15 he completed a first round of venture capital funding for Summly from Li Ka-Shing's investment firm, Horizons Ventures; he is the youngest person in the world to raise venture capital.[17]
Reception
D'Aloisio has been covered by several major publications, including ReadWrite.com,[18] BusinessInsider.com,[19] Wired,[20] Forbes,[21][22] The Huffington Post[23] and TechCrunch.[24] D'Aloisio has also made numerous television appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg, BBC, ITV, been written about in the British Metro newspaper, and been interviewed on BBC Radio Five Live.[citation needed] D'Aloisio also appeared on CBS This Morning in an interview with Charlie Rose, CNBC Squark Box, Bloomberg and appeared on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight in December 2012. Summly has had critical acclaim in receiving Apple's Best Apps of 2012 award for "Intuitive Touch" and currently has a 4.5/5 star rating on the App Store.
D'Aloisio was named a Top 1000 Influential Londoner by Evening Standard 2012, appeared in the 30 under 30 list for Forbes Magazine, and the Mail on Sunday Top 100 things to watch in 2013. D'Aloisio also won a Spirit of London Award in December 2012 as Entrepreneur of the Year.
See also
References
- ^ "Nick D'Aloisio, Britain's 17-year-old app entrepreneur - Telegraph".
- ^ BBC article (Jane Wakefield)
- ^ SmallBiz (Web journal)
- ^ TechCrunch (Web journal)
- ^ "Diana D'Aloisio".
- ^ "Lou Montilla".
- ^ Trimit (news)
- ^ Apple Announcement 2011
- ^ Venture Capital from HK
- ^ Summly launch (CNBC)
- ^ Summly Sale(Stuff)
- ^ Summly (Huffington Post)
- ^ Digital journal
- ^ Financial Times of London
- ^ D'Alosio receives $1 M in new VC funding
- ^ [1]
- ^ Small Biz Trends web article
- ^ readwriteweb.com
- ^ businessinsider.com BusinessInsider.com
- ^ Wired.com
- ^ forbes.com
- ^ forbes.com
- ^ Huffington Post Tech
- ^ techcrunch.com
External links
- Use dmy dates from September 2012
- Articles with bare URLs for citations from July 2012
- Living people
- 1995 births
- Australian chief executives
- Australian computer programmers
- Australian people of Italian descent
- British chief executives
- British computer programmers
- British emigrants to Australia
- British people of Italian descent
- Businesspeople from London
- People educated at King's College School, Wimbledon
- People from Perth, Western Australia