Meet factory worker’s billionaire son who built Rs 55000 crore company

Gujarat man Jaynti Kanani was born into poverty, defied odds to get education and then went on to be part of India's first crypto billionaire co-founders. In four years of kickstarting Polygon, the founders achieved a market cap of $10 billion in just 4 years in 2021. Kanani and Sandeep Nailwal built their billion-dollar comeback overcoming the non-IIT hurdle. 

Kanani was brought up in a small flat on the outskirts of Ahmedabad where his father worked in a diamond factory. Struggling to keep up financing, the family could not afford his education. Jaynti considers himself lucky to have been able to complete school. With life's only aim to help his family overcome poverty, Kanani studied engineering from Dharamsinh Desai University in Nadiad. He then got a job in Pune for a Rs 6,000 monthly salary. 

However, his father was forced to quit working due to failing eyesight which led Jaynti to look for a job with a bigger paycheck. He joined a startup and did multiple projects part-time. He even took a loan to get married. Ridden with debt, Jaynti said that building a billion-dollar firm never occurred in his mind.

Polygon was founded in 2017 by Kanani, Nailwal and third co-founder Anurag Arjun. Their fourth co-founder Mihalio Bjelic, a Serbian techie, came on board later. The firm thrust into limelight when they bagged an investment from one of America's most famous investors and Shark Tank judge Mark Cuban. In 2022, Polygon raised $450 million in funding from investors like SoftBank, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India. The market cap stands at around $6.7 billion (over Rs 55,000 crore) today.