Four Indian-origin entrepreneurs — Ankur Jain, Nikhil Kamath, Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha — with a combined net worth of over $11 billion, are among world’s richest self-made billionaires on Forbes’ annual 40 under 40 list.
The number of under 40 billionaires has soared amid the AI boom, tying the all-time record set in 2021 with Surge AI’s 38-year-old founder Edwin Chen emerging as the new richest self-made billionaire under 40 with an estimated worth of $18 billion.
He is one of 27 new self-made billionaires under the age of 40 to have joined the billionaires club just since March when Forbes locked in its 2025 World’s Billionaires List; nearly half of these newcomers made their money in AI.
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Altogether, Forbes found 71 billionaires aged 39 or younger who built their own fortunes. All but 11 of today’s young billionaire entrepreneurs made their money in tech (48) or finance and investments (12). Just under half (or 32) of them are American; citizens of China (8), India (6), Australia (3), Sweden (3) and Canada (3) round out the top 6. Eight are women.
The Forbes’ 40 under 40 billionaires of Indian descent are:
Ranked 19, Ankur Jain, 35, with a net worth of $3.4 billion founded New York-based home rental rewards startup Bilt Rewards in 2019, after selling Humin, a contact management app he cofounded, to Tinder in 2016. The son of a former dot com billionaire, Jain serves as CEO of Bilt, which private investors valued at $10.8 billion in July.
Ranked 20 is India-based Nikhil Kamath, 39, with a net worth of $3.3 billion. Kamath cofounded Bangalore-based discount brokerage Zerodha in 2010 with his older brother and fellow billionaire Nithin Kamath, 46.
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The company has grown to become one of India’s largest brokerages, and the brothers own 100% of the privately-held firm. Nikhil is the chief financial officer of Zerodha, which Forbes estimates is worth nearly $8 billion, while Nithin is CEO.
Ranked 27 are three Mercor co-founders Indian Americans Adarsh Hiremath and Surya Midha and Brendan Foody, all 22, with a net worth of $2.2 billion each from AI Software.
The high school friends and 2024 Thiel fellows cofounded AI recruiting startup Mercor in 2023 to help Silicon Valley’s biggest AI labs train their models. Private investors valued the San Francisco-based startup at $10 billion in October, making the trio the world’s youngest self-made billionaires ever at age 22.
Midha, who serves as chairman, is the youngest of the trio by roughly two months. Foody and Hiremath are Mercor’s CEO and chief technology officer, respectively.