How WB21 Billionaire CEO Michael Gastauer Built His Digital Banking Empire
A lot has been discussed about Michael Gastauer’s digital banking group WB21. When Forbes and Huffington Post published articles in late September 2016 on how Gastauer has built this $2.2 Billion FinTech Unicorn WB21 in less than ten months, the news spread like wildfire.
The reception was mixed. On the one hand, top tier financial magazines like Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and Huffington Post continued to write about Michael Gastauer and his success story. On the other hand, smaller leftist German outlets published a more controversial version of Gastauer’s story, focusing more on his past than his present success.
For sure, Michael Gastauer is an interesting character, a self-made Billionaire in his mid-40s, with a $16 Million and a $480 million deal under his belt. He travels in his G550 between Zurich, London and New York and lives in spacious estates decorated with contemporary masterpieces.
With an estimated net worth of $2.1 billion, Gastauer is among the 100 richest Germans according to Forbes. However, the question that many of Gastauer`s reviewer have asked is where did all this wealth come from? Trying to get to the source of this, we researched Michael Gastauer’s past.
Michael Gastauer started his first business in his early twenties. In 1998, he founded a Swiss-based private wealth management firm. Gastauer and his partner invested 1.2 Million CHF in setting up the company with an office in Zurich.
In 2002, only four years after the office opening in Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse, the firm announced over 1 billion assets under Management. Attracted by the company’s success, a Swiss managed Hedge Fund bought 75% of Gastauer`s asset management firm for $16 million. Most individuals in their mid-twenties would be thrilled to cash out with $16 million and consider this a successful exit to start enjoying life. Michael Gastauer didn’t waste time and went on to found his next business: Apax Global Payments, an online payment service provider for the upcoming eCommerce industry.
By 2008, Apax had grown into a group of companies, with offices in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
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One of the first in this industry, Apax soon became the preferred provider to process card and EFT payments for the gaming industry and other fast-growing online businesses. With most internet-based companies being a gray area until late 2008, Gastauer knew it would be time to sell before strict regulations start reducing the industry’s growth.
A Malaysian based Banking Group become the buyer of his business, which at this point had close to $100 million in annual revenue and a different certified software to process electronic payments. The parties agreed on a non-disclosure agreement, and Gastauer walked away with $480 million, which was enough to set up a family office in Monaco. There, he laid quiet for the next seven years.
In 2015, Gastauer returned to the stage as a venture capitalist and FinTech Investor with a $50 million Euro Fund. The first investment he announced was a 2 Million Euro Seed Funding of Digital Banking Start up WB21.
Michael Gastauer became the CEO and started to share his vision about how WB21 can solve problems that customers who want to open bank accounts worldwide are facing. He invested over 22 million Euro into the company, and in less than ten months, it had over 1 million customers from 180 countries. Today WB21 has more than 1.8 million customers.
In September 2016, WB21 announced its latest fundraising round of $200 million based on a $2.2 billion valuation. With a 75% shareholding, the valuation boosts Gastauer’s net worth to $2.13 billion, given that his net worth before WB21 has been estimated to be over $500 Million.
Like many of his peer Billionaires owning an Internet-based business, such as Brian Chesky (Airbnb) or Travis Kalanick (Uber), a significant portion of Michael Gastauer’s wealth is not in cash. It is based on the valuation of his shares. The big game, the founders of AirBnB, Uber, and WB21, have to play is driving the growth of their business and creating more value for their shareholders and new potential investors coming on board. Michael Gastauer knows how to play that game.
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