Aubrey Niederhoffer

In a letter to his newborn son dated May 5, 2006, which mentions the baby’s first two days, his father, the trader Victor NiederhofferVictor NiederhofferVictor Niederhoffer (1943–2026) was an American trader, hedge fund manager, author and squash player; one of the leading U.S. squash players of the 1960s and 1970s, he later speculated in markets using statistical methods, and the funds he ran were closed after heavy losses in 1997 and again in 2007.Open the full entry, writes that he was born in a big hospital in PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaPennsylvania (officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States; its capital is Harrisburg, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are its two great metropolitan areas. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 12, 1787, the second state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 13,002,700.Open the full entry; his father was 62 at the time and writes that he was the oldest father the hospital had discharged.⁠[1]

His father’s letter states that his grandmother Elaine died one week before he was born, leaving three children and ten grandchildren, and it mentions his eldest half-sibling, Galt. When Daily Speculations republished the letter on October 27, 2024, the text said that he had been named after two figures, Jack Aubrey, a character written about by Patrick O’Brian and C.S. Forester, and the biologist Charles Darwin, and that the heroic quality of Jack Aubrey inspired his first name.⁠[1][2]

His mother is Laurel Kenner, a former editor at BloombergBloomberg L.P.Bloomberg L.P. is a global financial technology, data and media company founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981. It began by providing terminal services that deliver data, analytics and news to financial professionals, and launched Bloomberg News in 1990. Michael Bloomberg has pledged the vast majority of the company’s profits to his philanthropic organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies.Open the full entry. The obituary of Victor Niederhoffer that The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American morning daily newspaper published in New York City. Founded in 1851, it is published by The New York Times Company.Open the full entry published in August 2026, as republished by The Boston Globe, describes Aubrey Niederhoffer as Victor Niederhoffer’s son from a relationship with Laurel Kenner.⁠[3]

Fortune writes that he grew interested in Africa while playing the online geography game GeoGuessr as a tween. The investment firm Variant writes in its April 2026 investment post that he grew up fascinated by geography, that at 12 he was a competitive GeoGuessr player, and that he ran a Discord community with members from more than 150 countries; the investment firm Version One Ventures writes that as a teenager he ran a global GeoGuessr community spanning more than 150 countries.⁠[4][5][6]

Fortune writes that at 15 he started a recruiting company focused on the labor pool in Eswatini and visited the country during breaks from school; Variant writes that the company sourced remote workers in Africa, and Version One Ventures that it connected African talent with U.S.United StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry employers.⁠[4][5][6]

When he published an article in the CT Mirror in June 2023, the author note described him as the founder of Amalgam Talent, an international recruitment agency connecting American employers with workers in the small African country of eSwatini.⁠[7]

On June 15, 2023 the CT Mirror published his opinion article “School board book clashes: A necessary frontier of the culture war”, with an author note describing him as a rising senior at Greenwich High School. The page states that the essay won the $1,000 first prize in the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government’s 2023 Forrest Palmer High School Essay Contest, which asked students to write about book bans, hate speech on campus or misinformation on social media.⁠[7]

The article takes Dearborn, MichiganMichiganMichigan is a state of the United States nearly surrounded by the Great Lakes and made up of the Upper and Lower peninsulas; its capital is Lansing and its largest city is Detroit. It was admitted to the Union on January 26, 1837, as the 26th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 10,077,331.Open the full entry, as its example: on October 10, 2022 hundreds of protesters demanded that the school board remove six books under review, most of them with LGBTQ characters. He argues that existing policy already let parents restrict their own children’s library access and that the protesters were really objecting to the implied official approval that inclusion in libraries and curricula carries; the board followed its normal review process, heard from all sides, pulled two books, kept two and left two under review, which he presents as representatives reflecting community values. Drawing on Michael Sandel, he calls for a “politics of moral engagement”, describes such disputes as valuable debates to take part in, and urges readers not to let their passion for children’s welfare undermine their faith in civil discourse and the democratic process.⁠[7]

He studied at the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is a campus of the University of California system; the University of California was founded in 1868 through a merger of two institutions and moved to Berkeley, California, in 1873.Open the full entry. Fortune and Launch Base Africa wrote in April 2026 that he would otherwise have been nearing the end of his sophomore year, and BusinessDay and Tech In Africa that he should have been midway through it. Fortune writes that before he reached Berkeley he had already shut down the recruiting company and was preparing to launch Swoop.⁠[4][8][9][10]

Fortune writes that he debuted the food delivery app in Eswatini in the summer after his first year of college and then dropped out to run the business full time. BusinessDay, Launch Base Africa and Tech In Africa write that in August 2025, after his freshman year, he co-founded Swoop in Eswatini with Edwin Ruiz; Launch Base Africa gives Thumo as Swoop’s former name.⁠[4][9][8][10]

BusinessDay, Launch Base Africa and Tech In Africa write that Swoop gained 6,000 users in its first month and that this early traction prompted him to drop out; BusinessDay writes that it also led him to shift the operation to Nigeria’s much larger market. Variant writes that the food delivery app, launched as a proof of concept for Swoop, became the largest e-commerce platform in Eswatini within months; Version One Ventures writes that Swoop became the country’s largest e-commerce platform with more than 22,000 users.⁠[9][8][10][5][6]

The sources describe the order of his leaving college and his moves differently: Variant writes that he first moved to Eswatini and launched the food delivery app, then dropped out and moved to Lagos; Version One Ventures writes that at 19 he dropped out of UC Berkeley, moved to Eswatini and launched Swoop.⁠[5][6]

Fortune writes that in fall 2025 he moved the business to Lagos, Nigeria, where his team used AI tools to rebuild the codebase from scratch for an updated version of the app, which went live in April 2026. TechMoran writes that Swoop moved its operations to Lagos in 2025; Launch Base Africa writes that its 28-person team had relocated to Lagos, where he also lives; TechCabal calls Swoop an Eswatini food delivery startup and writes that its expansion into Nigeria takes its super-app model outside its home country for the first time.⁠[4][11][8][12]

On April 20, 2026 the Thiel Foundation named its 2026 class of Thiel Fellows, and he was among them. The announcement lists his hometown as New York, NY and his project as Swoop, which is building the super app for Africa, starting with food delivery in Nigeria and expanding into financial services across the continent. Each fellow in the class, the announcement states, receives an award of $250,000 over the next two years.⁠[13]

Fortune writes that the program, started by Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry in 2011, gives young people $250,000 to skip or leave college and build new things, and that past fellows include Dylan FieldDylan FieldDylan Field is the co-founder and CEO of Figma and an angel investor. He studied computer science and mathematics at Brown University, explored browser-based design tools with Evan Wallace, and founded Figma in 2012 with support from the Thiel Fellowship. His personal history also includes collecting digital art and investing in companies such as Mercury and Socket.Open the full entry and Vitalik ButerinVitalik ButerinVitalik Buterin is the originator of Ethereum, the author of its whitepaper, and one of its eight co-founders, as well as a co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine. The Ethereum Foundation calls him the inventor of Ethereum; he has long been involved in protocol research and public discussion, but does not control the network as a CEO.Open the full entry; Launch Base Africa writes that he accepted a $250,000 grant from the Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry, BusinessDay that he accepted the Thiel grant, and Tech In Africa that he accepted the Thiel Fellowship. On April 23, 2026 Variant wrote that he had recently been named a 2026 Thiel Fellow.⁠[4][8][9][10][5]

On April 23, 2026 Fortune wrote that the 28-person company had raised $7.3 million in seed funding from investors including Long Journey, Variant, Version One, Dune Ventures and Soma Capital; BusinessDay and Tech In Africa add Zero Knowledge Ventures, and Launch Base Africa adds Base Capital and Walter Kortschak. TechCabal writes that Base Capital is the only African investor named and describes the round as one of the largest seed rounds disclosed by an African consumer startup, nearly as large as the $9 million Series A that Chowdeck closed in August 2025.⁠[4][9][10][8][12]

The same day Variant wrote in its investment post that it was co-leading the investment, and compared Swoop’s path to what Grab and Gojek did in Southeast Asia: start with a high-frequency service, build an agent network, then add financial services. Boris Wertz of Version One Ventures wrote that this was Version One’s first investment in Africa, that Swoop was building a single platform for payments, food delivery and everyday commerce, and that it had launched in Lagos in April 2026, with payments and point-of-sale products to follow.⁠[5][6]

BusinessDay, Launch Base Africa and Tech In Africa write that Swoop runs its delivery operations in Yaba, a densely populated area of mainland Lagos, on an asset-light model in which independent riders keep all of their delivery fees, earning revenue from restaurant commissions and a 7% customer fee; Launch Base Africa writes that it targets lower-income consumers on the outskirts of Lagos and in second-tier cities. The articles also name Demola Adesina as Nigeria country manager, who says in Launch Base Africa’s article: “We are not getting into a war with other platforms. We are trying to grow the pie.”⁠[9][8][10]

He says in Fortune’s article: “In Africa, there’s no legacy banking infrastructure. You’re competing with other fintechs.” Of credit cards he says: “Those are not popular, and there’s huge opportunity.” Fortune writes that he takes inspiration from Asian markets, where super apps such as Kaspi and WeChat have become what he called in a blog post the “default layer for marketplace services, payments, and everyday life”, and that Swoop plans a payment app and other services.⁠[4]

Fortune writes that he was then signing up restaurants and hiring staff, and that Swoop had so far operated only in fair weather, so it was not yet known how the service would perform in a rainstorm. Launch Base Africa names Chowdeck, Glovo and FoodCourt as Swoop’s current competitors; BusinessDay writes that Jumia Food and Bolt Food left Nigeria and other African markets in late 2023; Tech In Africa writes that Swoop targets Nigerians who do not yet order food online rather than Chowdeck’s existing users.⁠[4][8][9][10]

His father, Victor Niederhoffer, died at his home in Weston, ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a U.S. state in the New England region. Its capital is Hartford and its largest city is Bridgeport (2010 census). It entered the Union on January 9, 1788, as the 5th state, and had a population of 3,605,944 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, on August 4, 2026, at 82; his family confirmed the death. The survivors listed in the obituary are Victor Niederhoffer’s wife, Susan Niederhoffer, and their four daughters, Rand, Victoria, Artemis and Kira; two daughters from his previous marriage, Galt and Katie; his son Aubrey Niederhoffer, from his relationship with Laurel Kenner; 15 grandchildren; and Victor Niederhoffer’s siblings Roy Niederhoffer and Diane Klein.⁠[3]

The obituary states that Victor Niederhoffer was born in Brooklyn on December 10, 1943, graduated from Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry in 1964 as an economics major, received a doctorate in finance from the University of Chicago in 1969 and then taught at UC Berkeley; he won the 1964 national intercollegiate individual squash title, five U.S. national singles championships and the 1975 North American Open; he began trading in 1979 with $50,000 and started a hedge fund, and suffered heavy losses twice, in 1997 after investing in Thai securities and in 2007 during the subprime mortgage crisis; and he wrote The Education of a Speculator (1997).⁠[3]

As of November 2026, Swoop’s Nigerian website uses the tagline “Africa’s Super App”, shows food delivery as live and groceries and pharmacy as coming soon, gives Yaba in Lagos (including UNILAG and Yabatech) as its service area, lists 1,999 restaurants in Lagos, and names partner restaurants including KFCKFCKFC (originally Kentucky Fried Chicken) is a global fast-food chain owned by Yum! Brands that specializes in fried chicken. It grew out of a roadside restaurant run by Harland Sanders in Corbin, Kentucky, and as of June 2026 had more than 34,000 restaurants in more than 150 countries.Open the full entry, Pizza Inn and Chicken Inn. The site’s About page states that Swoop operates in Lagos, Nigeria, and in Eswatini.⁠[14][15]

As of November 2026, Swoop’s Eswatini website describes Swoop as a same-day food delivery app offering delivery from restaurants in Mbabane, Manzini, Ezulwini and Matsapha, and lists 149 restaurants in Mbabane. Both websites list Long Journey, Variant, VersionOne, Dune and Soma Capital as backers.⁠[16][14]

In a post titled “Father and son” on his website, Daily Speculations, on December 14, 2024, his father notes the 63-year age gap between them and writes that his own father used to say he would be the happiest man alive when his son could beat him at nearly everything, and that he feels the same about Aubrey; he adds that before his stroke he could beat Aubrey at most racket sports.⁠[2]

On June 5, 2025 the site published a post titled “Aubrey and Vic in Thailand last week” with a photograph of the two in Thailand, in which his father writes that he had just returned from a tour of Asia lasting a few weeks.⁠[2]

The sources describe where he is from in different ways: the Thiel Foundation announcement gives New York, NY; Fortune says he is from the New York area; the CT Mirror author note describes him as a student at Greenwich High School; and Launch Base Africa calls him an American.⁠[13][4][7][8]

Swoop: Official website: https://www.swoop.com.ng/ (opens in a new window).⁠[14]

Swoop (Eswatini): Official website: https://swoop.co.sz/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[17]

X: Public account: https://x.com/needaubrey (opens in a new window).⁠[6]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aubreyniederhoffer/ (opens in a new window).⁠[6]