OnlyFans has been a money-printing machine for its secretive billionaire owner Leonid Radvinsky. Investors were puzzled by an obscure debt fund’s pitch to buy him out, until they learned of his terminal cancer diagnosis. The pitch was arguably taboo. But while investors blushed at OnlyFans’ NSFW content, they were undeniably turned on by its balance sheet. A deal pulled together by an obscure San Francisco-based debt fund put a $5.5 billion price tag on the British website, which became a global sensation during the pandemic. It’s a rock-bottom number for a money machine that raked in $1.4 billion in revenue and $720 million in operating profit in 2024 for secretive billionaire owner Leonid Radvinsky. But then investors learned that Radvinsky, 43, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His declining health was the reason for the sale and its accelerated pace, according to several sources close to the deal. OnlyFans announced Radvinsky’s death on Monday (without specifying when or where he died). His heir apparent is his wife, Yekaterina Chudnovsky, who a source close to the couple describes as Radvinsky’s de facto business partner. The deal still hangs in the balance with the terms being revised just weeks before Radvinsky’s death, the sources said. The hopeful buyer is Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based fund that got its start in 2020 offering credit to fast-growing Latin American startups like Colombian food delivery app Rappi. Now it seems focused on working with companies in crisis. That’s not the case right now for OnlyFans. Under Radvinsky’s ownership, the company exploded from a niche website into a juggernaut used by 377 million users and 4.6 million creators, including both sex workers and celebrities like actor Amanda Bynes, singer Lily Allen and UFC fighter Paige VanZant. In 2024, it generated $7.2 billion with only 46 full-time employees. The company takes a 20% cut of every transaction, according to a British corporate filing. “It's a risk and reputation problem. It's not a financial problem.” But investors who reviewed the deal told Forbes they saw warning signs around slowing growth and risks for the site’s relationships with its biggest creators, regulators and the card companies that underpin the business — and which could pull out at any time. Architect’s pitch is that new ownership would bring big changes, according to multiple investors who heard it. The firm said it would push OnlyFans to compete with mainstream rivals like Patreon by hosting content from more creators who keep their clothes on. It hopes to acquire a banking license to break OnlyFans’ expensive reliance on credit card companies, which wield an uncomfortable amount of power over the business, helping its adult content creators get paid more reliably and at a lower cost, the sources said. Architect hopes to turn OnlyFans into a more PG place “where you can connect with your favorite boxer or athlete,” says one investor who received the proposal. Shawn Silver, CEO of Payment NerdsOnlyFans’ success earned Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur who got his start building porn referral websites, a $4.7 billion fortune. But its size, scale and notoriety has made it hard to sell. The company positions itself as a platform for content creators but is best known for hosting images and videos that involve nudity and sexually explicit material. That makes it off-limits to many venture capitalists and buyout funds due to so-called “vice” clauses with their own backers, restricting them from investing in controversial categories like tobacco, gambling, weapons and pornography. Read the full story on Forbes: By Iain Martin, Forbes Staff and Martina Di Licosa, Forbes Staff. https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2026/03/26/inside-the-race-to-sell-onlyfans/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
