Forbes estimated Tobias Lutke's net worth at $12.3 billion in August 2025. Most of it is his stake in Shopify, which is listed on the TSX and Nasdaq.
He started in 2004 with Snowdevil, a snowboard store, and built his own software for it. Shopify launched as a product in June 2006. Lutke took no salary in the launch phase, and Bruce McKean supplied early seed capital.
Shopify raised a $7 million Series A in December 2010, $15 million in October 2011 and $100 million in December 2013. It went public on 21 May 2015, raising more than $131 million.
The path was not smooth. The stock fell more than 11% in a day in 2017 after a short-seller attack. Shopify cut 10% of staff in 2022 and 20% in 2023. For fiscal 2025 it reported revenue of about $11.6 billion and net income of about $1.23 billion.