In the last two years, the highly profitable company paid more than $500 million to its reclusive owner Leonid Radvinsky.

During the past two years, OnlyFans has reported record profits, allowing its reclusive owner to receive more than $500 million (£433 million).

As users spent $4.8 billion on the site last year, Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American 40-year-old, is the sole shareholder in the business.

OnlyFans has become one of the most financially successful British tech start-ups in recent years; succeeding more mainstream companies have failed. In September 2021, the company’s pre-tax profits increased by 615% to $432m.

Adult performers upload their material to the site, keeping 80% of the revenue.

For Radvinsky, the remaining 20% covers the cost of running the business, processing credit cards, and providing a very healthy income. Dividend payments to himself have reached $45 million a month.

While OnlyFans claims its platform enables celebrities and musicians to monetize their social media followings – and invests in its OFTV service – pornography remains the main attraction. Fans can message their favourite performers or buy videos from OnlyFans’ 2.1 million registered creators.

With the business model, creators keep most of the revenue from viewers instead of going through traditional pornography studios. They must also take responsibility for their marketing and regularly provide subscribers with new content.

OneFans was founded in 2016 by a family from Essex. Guy Stokely, Tim Stokely’s father, was once a banker. Tim’s brother and mother both participated in the business at various points.

After 2018, when Radvinsky bought the site, the company took off. Radvinsky had experience running pornography sites.

The Stokelys cut their ties with the company at the end of last year. According to OnlyFans’ accounts, the company has written down Delivery Code Ltd, a business it bought for £23.65m, to zero.

Last year, OnlyFans paid HMRC $88m in corporation tax, despite the vast majority of its income from US customers.

In addition to requiring users to verify their age, PornHub could also benefit from British government proposals to enforce age verification checks on free porn sites.

As of September last year, the highly profitable company employed just 61 people but is rapidly expanding – and facing scrutiny over its age checks.

When its banks threatened to cut payment processing services, the company briefly had to remove all porn from its servers.

Amrapali Gan, former marketing boss, was appointed chief executive after the banks relented and the adult material survived.

In her words: “We empower creators to monetize their content.”. Our commitment has driven the success of the last 12 months’ creators.

By improving safety, developing original OFTV content, and continuing to grow our community of creators and viewers, we will continue to support the creator economy.”

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