SCIENCE & TECH: OnlyFans founder’s death leaves investment firm struggling to complete acquisition deal

A Silicon Valley investment firm is struggling to find backers for its bid to acquire OnlyFans following the death of the porn site’s reclusive owner, The Post has learned.

Architect Capital – a San Francisco-based investment firm known for controversial bets including the Juul Labs vaping brand – has been angling to buy a 60% stake in OnlyFans with the help of New York investment bank Moelis & Co., The Post exclusively reported last month.

Terms of the prospective deal – which were discussed before OnlyFans owner Leonid Radvinsky’s death from cancer at age 43 reported this week – value the money-minting smut platform at $3.5 billion, according to sources close to the situation. 

On the face of it, that looks like a rock- bottom price given the cash cranked out by OnlyFans. For the fiscal year ended Nov. 30, 2024, OnlyFans had $666 million in operating profit on $1.4 billion in revenue, according to UK corporate filings. 

The key problem: Prospective buyers worry that OnlyFans, despite its eye-popping profits, could never be taken public. In addition to investing guidelines that prevent many funds from plowing into porn, OnlyFans has faced banking problems because of its niche, insiders say.

“They are still trying to round up the money and people are thinking through long term exit issues,” a source close to the talks said. 

“The company had been struggling to find a buyer largely because of the porn stigma. But it has incredible financials that are very attractive,” one of the sources told The Post last month.

OnlyFans, Moelis and Architect didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last year, Visa began enforcing stricter chargeback and fraud standards that slammed OnlyFans. X-rated sites also face higher transaction fees – often 5% to 10% versus 2% to 3% for traditional e-commerce, according to a report this year by payments processor Myntpay.

In recent months, insiders say OnlyFans has considered addressing its long-running banking woes with plans to buy or partner with a financial technology company, sources say. 

Payments companies such as CCBill and Segpay have served the smut landscape for years. More recently, however, startups have touted using crypto technology to remove friction in adult content banking and payments.

Radvinsky made $7.4 billion by taking porn to the mainstream and helping people post their most intimate moments on the internet for money.

OnlyFans enriched a number of creators, who mourned the founder’s passing.

They included Sophie Rain — an adult star who earned a mind-boggling $95 million on OnlyFans between 2023 and 2025.

“I don’t even know how to put this into words. That man built something that changed my entire life. Like, I grew up on food stamps and now I can take care of my whole family because of a platform he created. I will never forget that,” she told The Post.

Piper Rockelle, another top earner on OnlyFans, said she was “still processing” Radvinsky’s death.

“I’ve only been on the platform since January but it already changed everything for me,” she said.