Irish tech billionaire Patrick Collinson secretly wed his childhood sweetheart in a ceremony in Italy months ago.
The Tipperary native and co-founder of Stripe first met now wife Silvana Konnerman after she narrowly beat him for the top spot in the 2004 EU Young Scientist competition.
While he lost out on victory to Silvana, he re-entered the following year and won.
READ MORE: Article on US website about Limerick removed after anger over one phrase in particular
The couple tied the knot back in April but the news that the pair were married has only emerged in recent days.
Patrick famously founded tech company Stripe with his younger brother John in 2010. The company offers its clients payment processing services and received 2 million dollars in funding from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
While Patrick announced his engagement to Silvana back in 2019 on Twitter, he did not name his fiancée at the time.
The 33-year-old entrepreneur made headlines last year after hitting out at a Forbes Magazine article which suggested they “escaped” from a harsh childhood upbringing in Limerick.
The author of the piece compared Limerick to a “war-zone” and said that the brothers, who grew up approximately 30 miles away from the city, had overcome hardship to gain their current success.
Patrick voiced his concern over the article’s accuracy on Twitter, alongside several local TDs.
“Not only mistaken about Limerick but the idea of "overcoming" anything is crazy. We are who we are because we grew up where we did”, Patrick said in a Tweet.
The article has since been removed from Forbes online site.
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