Ben Pasternak


Benjamin Pasternak is an Australian technology entrepreneur. He is the founder of Monkey, an American social media company that enables teenagers to video chat with like-minded people. Monkey was acquired by Chinese social media company Holla for an undisclosed sum. Ben is recognized as one of the youngest people to receive a round of venture capital in technology, at the age of 15. Ben is currently the founder and CEO of NUGGS, a chicken nugget simulation company, which has raised US$7M in investment to date.

Early life and education

Pasternak was born in Sydney, to Anna Pasternak and Mark Pasternak. He has a younger brother, Jake, and a younger sister, Maya. Pasternak grew up in Vaucluse, eastern Sydney. He was educated at Moriah College and Reddam House.
Pasternak designed his first publicly launched mobile app, Impossible Rush, while bored in science class at school. He showed the idea to his online friend Austin Valleskey, an iOS engineer from Chicago. The pair completed building the game in a matter of hours. The game went on to be downloaded millions of times and peaked at No. 16 on the US App Store top charts, in front of Tinder and Twitter at the time. Pasternak released the game Impossible Dial as a follow up to his original game Impossible Rush. Impossible Dial was acquired for US$85,000 and peaked at No. 31 on the US App Store.
In January 2015, Facebook and Google both offered Pasternak internship opportunities. Months after declining both opportunities, Pasternak dropped out of high school, at the age of 15, and relocated to New York to accept an offer to receive venture capital funding for one of his projects.

Career

Flogg

In April 2015, Pasternak founded Flogg, a social networking app for young people to buy and sell. Pasternak's early success had caught the attention of venture capital firm Binary Capital. Binary agreed to lead a round of venture capital funding in Flogg before the app had launched. Binary were joined by other investors including Greylock Partners, John Maloney and Paul Bricault. Flogg launched in April 2016 and was temporarily the No. 1 trending app on the US App Store.

Monkey

In November 2016, Ben co-founded Monkey, a video chat based app for teenagers to meet like-minded people. The app has been used to make over 20 billion calls and has over 20 million users. The app peaked at No. 1 on the US App Store. Monkey had raised US$2 million in funding. On 1 December 2017, Holla announced that it had acquired Monkey for an undisclosed sum.

NUGGS

In early 2018, Ben founded a new startup called NUGGS. NUGGS manufactures a chicken nugget simulation made out of a texturized pea protein technology. In July 2019, Forbes reported that NUGGS raised a US$ in funding round led by Canadian food company McCain Foods.

Awards and recognition

Pasternak garnered media attention for being a young entrepreneur. He has been covered by major publications, including Forbes, Fortune, New York Post, The New Yorker, The Huffington Post and TechCrunch. Pasternak has also made numerous television appearances.
In 2016, Pasternak appeared in Time magazine as one of the world's most influential teenagers. He also appeared in 18 Under 18, an annual list of top young entrepreneurs who are changing the world by Fortune Magazine. In addition, Ben was given the Crain's magazine 20 Under 20 award in 2016.