Two Indian-origin men have figured in Forbes magazine’s second annual list of wealthiest entrepreneurs under the age of 40, which is topped by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has been ranked 24th on ‘America’s Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 2016’ list with a networth of $600 million, and Instacart co-founder Apoorva Mehta, stands at the 31st spot with a $360-million networth.
Ramaswamy, 31, a Harvard University and Yale School of Management alumnus, continues to make waves in the biotech business with his deals and drug development plans, Forbes said.
He was behind the biggest biotechnology IPO of 2016, Myovant Sciences, which raised $218-million listing its shares on Nasdaq in October, it said.
Last year, Ramaswamy pulled off the biggest IPO in the US biotech history by listing shares of Axovant, a company that is trying to develop a new Alzheimer’s drug.
He runs Roivant Sciences, a biotech holding company with an innovative financial strategy to develop drugs, often by purchasing drugs that have been forgotten or abandoned by the pharmaceutical industry.
Forbes called Mehta one of Silicon Valley’s youngest immigrant success stories.
Born in India, Mehta and his family moved to Canada in 2000, where he studied engineering at the University of Waterloo before working at Blackberry, Qualcomm, and then Amazon. In 2012, he co-founded Instacart, a grocery-delivery service that partners with grocery chains. The company is valued at an estimated $2 billion, and most recently raised funding from Whole Foods Market in March, it said.