App designed by teenager attracts investment from worlds 11th richest person

An app designed and developed by a 16-year-old from South London has attracted investment from a Hong Kong billionaire.

Summly is an iPhone app which summarises the content of web pages and search results.

Nick D'Aloisio, who developed the app in his bedroom, was inspired to design the content preview app whilst studying for a school exam.

The first version of the app was called TrimIt and reached 100,000 downloads. The app caught the eye of private equity investment firm Horizons Ventures, headed up by Chinese billionaire Li Ka-Shing, who is ranked as the eleventh richest person in the world. The firm invested $250,000 in the project.

The app evolved into Summly, and was downloaded 30,000 times in the first week after its launch in mid-December.

There are plans to launch Android and web versions of the app in 2012.


"fuel it"