WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton invested $50 million into the Signal app - Siyalla
Author: https://www.facebook.com/siyalla/
Description: WhatsApp fellow benefactor Brian Acton is as of now the 76 th wealthiest individual in America, with a total assets of almost $7 billion. Acton as of late contributed $50 million of his own cash into the Signal application.
Date: 2018-03-12T10:56:33+00:00

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# WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton invested $50 million into the Signal app

Acton’s net worth has more than doubled in the past four years, increasing from $3 billion in March 2014 to $6.7 billion in March 2018.

WhatsApp fellow benefactor Brian Acton is as of now the 76 th wealthiest individual in America, with a total assets of almost $7 billion.

Acton as of late contributed $50 million of his own cash into the Signal application.

Instead of spending luxuriously, the tech very rich person appears to center around contributing and magnanimity.

Brian Acton, fellow benefactor of WhatsApp, has constantly known how to gain ground in Silicon Valley.

Most as of late, he infused $50 million of his own cash into encoded talk application Signal, helping dispatch the Signal Foundation.

However, to the 76th wealthiest individual in America, that sum scarcely influences an imprint in the bank to account. Acton has a total assets of $6.9 billion, as per Forbes.

That is far from his Yahoo days.

Acton and his WhatsApp fellow benefactor, Jan Koum, began the organization in the wake of leaving Yahoo, and it has since turned out to be a standout amongst the most famous versatile informing applications on the planet. In 2014, WhatsApp was obtained by Facebook for $22 billion — and Acton got about $3 billion from the deal.

Acton stays under the radar in Silicon Valley. While very little is thought about how he spends his cash in his own life, unmistakably the Stanford alum has an inclination for speculations and magnanimity.

### Look through to perceive how he shares his billions.

In February 2014, Facebook made a deal to acquire WhatsApp for $19 billion in cash and stock. By the time it was acquired the following October, that number rose to $22 billion. Acton owned 22% of the company at the time of the sale.
It was a major payday for Acton, who received roughly $3 billion for his stake in WhatsApp, with almost 38 million shares of Facebook and $1 billion in cash. He also collected about 10 million shares of Facebook in the form of restricted stock units.
Following Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp, Acton donated Facebook shares worth nearly $290 million to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, who helped him start three philanthropic entities.
In the likes of Zuckerberg and other Silicon Valley VIPs, Acton lives in Palo Alto, California. This small town boasts a real estate price tag bigger than its population — the median home value is $3,084,500.
Acton’s foray into philanthropy began with Sunlight Giving, which he launched in 2014 with his wife, Tegan Acton. It supports the basic needs of low-income families with children age five and below in the Bay Area, including support for safe spaces and organizations that provide food security, family support resources, housing stability, and health care access. With $470 million in assets, it grants more and more money each year — $6.4 million in 2015, $19.2 million in 2016, and $23.6 million in 2017.
Around the same time, Acton also launched Family Giving, a donor-advised fund at Fidelity Charitable, which supports initiatives with a close connection to Acton and his family such as building empathy in society. Current initiatives include supporting first-person storytelling and promoting compassion for vulnerable animals throughout the world.
Ever the tech man at heart, in 2016 Acton led a funding round in Gurgaon-based startup Trak N Tell, a car tracking telematics solution company. Along with two other investors, he reportedly raked in nearly $3.5 million in the startup.
In 2017, the Actons launched Solidarity Giving, another donor-advised fund at Fidelity Charitable, which focuses on human and civil rights. It commits about $10 million a year to its partners, which have included the ACLU Foundation, Anti-Defamation League, Planned Parenthood, and The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
In September 2017, Acton further spread his wings, revealing he planned to leave WhatsApp to start his own foundation. “I’ve decided to start a nonprofit focused at the intersection of nonprofit, technology, and communications,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
The following February, Acton invested $50 million in the newly formed Signal Foundation, a nonprofit that will maintain the Signal app as well as other potential privacy-focused apps in the future. He’s joining the foundation as executive chairman.

Original article by Hillary Hoffower

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