Yahoo buys Summly news app from teenager for £18m

Nick D'Aloisio, from Wimbledon, south London, created the app, called Summly - which provides bite-sized summaries of content from news and other sites - a little over a year ago from his bedroom and now joins an elite group of teenagers who have become internet millionaires.

D'Aloisio, who is still too young to be a director of his own firm, said he had begun tinkering with apps for mobile devices as a hobby and had not expected to profit from it, Kazinform quotes the Guardian. The money from the sale of the business will go into a trust fund, although he said he does intend to get a new computer, as well as some new trainers. "I'll be staying in London," said D'Aloisio. "I want to finish my A-levels, and I couldn't really live on my own out there."

His mother, Diana D'Aloisio, appeared to still be somewhat in shock. "I knew he was a little out of the box, but I didn't expect it to happen all of a sudden like this," she said. "From a young age he displayed abilities in technologies I frankly didn't understand. He was doing 3D programming, and we bought him a book called C Programming For Dummies. My husband and I just used our computers for work, he was doing totally different stuff."

The price tag is understood to be £18m, 90% in cash and 10% in Yahoo shares, though other reports suggested the total could be up to £40m. Neither D'Aloisio nor Yahoo would confirm the details of the deal.

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