Billionaire Gen Zer dropped out of high school to launch his start-up at 17—now he’s the richest self-made 25-year-old in the U.K and all of Europe

One Gen Z high school dropout with two tech businesses to his name has just become Europe’s youngest self-made billionaire following a breakout investing round—before even turning 30.

James Dacombe, the 25-year-old serial entrepreneur behind AI chip-making firm Olix and brain monitoring startup CoMind, just hit a personal net worth of over $1 billion.

Dacombe launched his London-based firm Olix just two years ago, which tripled in value since February and raised $312 million from investors earlier this month, boosting the company’s market cap to $3.3 billion.

It also pushed the bank account of Dacombe, who owns an estimated 30% stake in the company, over the billion-dollar threshold.

Meanwhile, Dacombe also owns a 12% stake in CoMind—a company he created in 2017, and still leads—raised $102.5 million in August last year, which contributes to his eye-watering net worth.

The British Gen Z founder is just one of 11 self-made billionaires in the world under 30 years old, and one of four who don’t live in the U.S.

How James Dacombe became a billionaire Dacombe was destined to build.

He began programming apps and websites at just 13 years old, attending private school Ashville College in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, before taking his A levels in physics, math, economics, and business.

But the then-teenager knew the academic life wasn’t for him.

So at 17 years old, Dacombe dropped out of high school to scale his budding company: CoMind.

And four years later, he’d take on a major opportunity to accelerate his business.

The founder then took the Thiel Fellowship : a two-year competitive program established by Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel that grants budding entrepreneurs $250,000 to skip college and pursue their entrepreneurial passions.

It’s a fellowship that has kick-started the careers of billion-dollar successes like ScaleAI ’s Alexandr Wang and Lucy Guo —and now, Dacombe can add his name to the list of success stories.

“An advantage of starting my business so young was naivety,” Dacombe told The Sunday Times in 2024.