When you’re young, you have energy, ambition, and ideas, but little capital. When you’re older, you may have resources, but less courage or willingness to take risks.
That gap led Kirill Avery, 24, a founder and CEO, to an unusual approach: borrowing from his future self. At 21, he offered investors 2% of his future earnings over the next 15 years to fund his ventures, according to Business Insider.
“When you’re young, you have energy, ambition, and ideas, but little capital. When you’re older, you may have resources, but less stamina or willingness to take risks,” Avery told Business Insider.
From St. Petersburg to Silicon Valley
Avery grew up in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, Russia, in a family that was neither wealthy nor highly educated. From a young age, he became self-sufficient and largely self-taught. By age 10, he had taught himself to code and was developing computer games for school friends, gaining early recognition.
In 2017, after completing 10th grade, Avery dropped out of school to join VK, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, as an engineer. A year later, at 16, he launched a livestream trivia app that went viral, becoming one of Russia’s most-downloaded games in 2018. At 17, he was named on Russia’s Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
“I didn’t want this to be my peak, but it became clear that Russia wasn’t the place to keep growing. I had to be in Silicon Valley,” Avery told Business Insider.
The Birth of Borrowing From Your Future
In 2019, Avery traveled to California for the first time to attend the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference and secured an O-1 US visa for individuals with extraordinary ability. Accepted into Y Combinator in 2021, he launched Lalabox, a live-stream shopping app for beauty products. But Avery wanted to tackle something more meaningful.
“I wanted to build something too unconventional for most investors to fund, but didn’t have the resources. This is where the idea of borrowing from my future self took shape,” he explained.
He formed a holding company, Kirill Co., and structured a SAFE agreement allowing investors to buy exposure to everything he builds over 15 years, capping the percentage of his future earnings at 2%. By 2022, Avery had raised $500,000 at age 21.
A Risky but Rewarding Strategy
Investors receive periodic updates on how their money is being used. Avery admits the agreement has few guardrails, but says his reputation and work ethic keep him accountable.
“There’s nothing stopping me from going on vacation for a few years and spending the investors’ money, for example. However, my investors know me personally and understand how bad I feel that I’m 24 and not yet a billionaire. They know that I don’t give myself time to switch off,” he told, according to the report.
His current projects, Human and Alien, focus on verifying online identities in the age of AI. Avery plans to release documents to help other young founders sell a percentage of their future earnings.
“Sam Altman said that all the best founders believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion. They have extreme self-belief in their capacity for success. By the time the 15 years are up, I’m 100% sure that I’ll be extremely successful,” Avery said.