Singapore Has a New Richest Person With $20 Billion Fortune

Forrest Li, Sea Ltd.’s co-founder, chairman and CEO, has become Singapore’s richest person as shares of his company surged. Li, who was born in China and later became a Singapore citizen, is now worth $19.8 billion after Sea’s American depositary receipts rose 67% this year.

This is a perfect example of how technological advancements and digitalisation have brought new wealth to tech founders across Asia. Earlier this year, Brian Kim, the founder of messaging giant Kakao Corp, has also became South Korea’s richest person.

Sea is the most valued company in Southeast Asia. Expanding beyond gaming and e-commerce, Sea turned its engine to conquer the Fintech space after winning a digital-banking license in Singapore. The Company’s digital-payments and financial-services business saw a total rise of 150% from a year earlier, which drove the Sea’s earnings call on Aug.17 to $2.3 billion in the same period.

The Company’s broader success has been founded on its mobile game Free Fire, which has exceeded 1 billion downloads on Google play. The e-commerce platform, Shopee, has also become the second-most downloaded shopping app on Android and iOS globally, citing App Annie data.

Even after the stock surged more than 20-fold since listing in 2017, the sentiment remains positive due to the post-pandemic recovery and Shopee’s new expansion into Latin American markets.