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Business: India has also born many business tycoons who, through their hard work and dedication, have been able to get a place in the Forbes Billionaires list or Hurun’s Asia’s Richest list.
This story is the success story of a business tycoon from Gujarat, Virji Vora, who founded the East India Company and assisted this Mughal ruler. He is even considered to be the richest businessman in the history of the British East India Company.
This man was the world’s richest businessman ever, much richer than Mukesh Ambani, and Ratan Tata, Adani also helped this Mughal ruler, East India Company.
Whereas his family background is pretty scarce, among scholars it has been reported that he was a Srimali Oswal Porwal caste man. His large contributions to religious causes made him Samghapati or Sanghavi. This title is given to lay leaders giving significant contributions in certain roles, such as building temples, arranging pilgrimages on large scales, etc. He was active between 1619 and 1670. He played a very important role in facilitating the trade of this era. Read the story of the man, who remained the world’s richest businessman ever, much richer than Mukesh Ambani, Adani, and Tata.
Born in 1590, Virji Vora engaged in wholesale trading, banking, and money-lending activities. He got into a monopolistic position in some imports into Surat and dealt in a wide variety of commodities: opium, bullion, coral, ivory, and lead, to name a few. Vora was also one of the major providers of credit for, besides being a client to, both the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company.
He was often referred to as the “merchant prince,” and he quite deserved the title he acquired personal wealth amounting to approximately $8 million during his lifetime a staggering amount for that period.
Virji Vora was a prominent figure in the Mughal era, and he is one of the main finance providers of the Company during 1617-1670. It has been reported that he lent Rs 2,00,000 to the Company on one occasion. Vora played the most important role in trade and financial networks of his time.
Virji Vora was a ‘sole monopolist’ and was known to buy whole stock sets and sell them for handsome profits. Outposts of Virji’s commercial empire were spread all over India and Southeast Asia and in the port cities around the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Virji’s commercial trade had an agent network maintained by him across major Indian commercial cities.
Though he was a threat to the British, he was also an ardent friend to the East India Company as he used to send them gifts and letters and became the largest creditor and customer of the East India Company in Surat. Historians have mentioned that when the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb faced financial crunch in his campaign to capture the Deccan region, an agent was sent to Virji Vora to collect some funds. Notably, as an oblation, Virji Vora first offered to Shah Jahan four Arab horses.
