Jose-Sarmento Matos/BloombergThe pitch was arguably taboo. But while investors blushed at OnlyFans’ NSFW content, they were undeniably turned on by its balance sheet.A deal pulled together by an obscure San Francisco-based debt fund put a $5.5 billion price tag on the British website, which became a global sensation during the pandemic. It’s a rock-bottom number for a money machine that raked in $1.4 billion in revenue and $720 million in operating profit in 2024 for secretive billionaire owner Leonid Radvinsky. But then investors learned that Radvinsky, 43, had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His declining health was the reason for the sale and its accelerated pace, according to several sources close to the deal. OnlyFans announced Radvinsky’s death on Monday (without specifying when or where he died). His heir apparent is his wife, Yekaterina Chudnovsky, who a source close to the couple describes as Radvinsky’s de facto business partner.The deal still hangs in the balance with the terms being revised just weeks before Radvinsky’s death, the sources said. The hopeful buyer is Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based fund that got its start in 2020 offering credit to fast-growing Latin American startups like Colombian food delivery app Rappi. Now it seems focused on working with companies in crisis. That’s not the case right now for OnlyFans. Under Radvinsky’s ownership, the company exploded from a niche website into a juggernaut used by 377 million users and 4.6 million creators, including both sex workers and celebrities like actor Amanda Bynes, singer Lily Allen and UFC fighter Paige VanZant. In 2024, it generated $7.2 billion with only 46 full-time employees. The company takes a 20% cut of every transaction, according to a British corporate filing.“It's a risk and reputation problem. It's not a financial problem.”