The founders of a controversial streaming platform facing fury for live-streaming a French content creator’s death are crypto-billionaires who sponsor an F1 team.
Australia’s youngest billionaire Ed Craven, 29, and his 31-year-old business partner, Bijan Tehrani, set up Kick in 2022 and also established Stake.com, the largest crypto-backed online casino in the world.
The gaming-fanatics are said to be worth a combined $5.6billion while Craven once made headlines for buying two mansions in Australia for a total of $120million.
But their streaming site is at the centre of a growing scandal after it broadcast Raphael Graven, better known online as Jean Pormanove, being allegedly tortured for ten days before he was found dead in Contes, Nice on Monday.
Graven, a prominent Kick streamer, was known for so-called ‘humiliation streams’ – featuring extreme violence.
Kick is a Twitch-style platform where users livestream to paying audiences. A counter on Graven’s final broadcast showed more than £31,000 raised.
Kick was founded in 2022 by Aussie gaming fanatics Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani. Tehrani (left) was in a relationship with Australian model and Melbourne ‘it’ girl Mila Mary (right)
Ed Craven, pictured with UFC star Israel Adesanya, became a sponsor of an F1 team last year
Graven was a prominent figure on Kick – a streaming platform similar to Twitch where people broadcast live video to an audience who can comment and donate money in real time. Kick was founded in 2022 by Aussie gaming fanatics Ed Craven (left) and Bijan Tehrani (right)
Craven is Australia’s youngest billionaire and previously made headlines when he purchased two Toorak mansions for around $40million and $80million apiece. Pictured: The $88million house
Raphael Graven (pictured), better known online as Jean Pormanove, was allegedly tortured for ten days on streaming platform kick before he was found dead in Contes, a village north of Nice on Monday
Canadian rapper Drake and internet personality Adin Ross, who have both used Kick, are believed to be joining forces to pay for Graven’s funeral.
But Drake, who according to NME has been an ambassador for Kick, last night seemingly deleted his account with no reason given amid reported tensions with the platform’s co-founders, particularly Craven.
Craven is Australia’s youngest billionaire and previously made headlines when he purchased two Melbourne mansions for around $40million and $80million apiece.
He became a sponsor of an F1 team last year when he took over the Sauber team, before revealing it would be renamed Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber.
Kick has been one of two major sponsors attached to the Sauber F1 team since rebranding from Alfa Romeo at the end of the 2023 campaign, the other being Stake.
After Graven’s death Sauber released a statement saying they were ‘saddened by this tragedy and trust KICK to take all necessary steps to uphold its safeguards and protect creators.’
Although information about Tehrani and Craven’s rise to riches is readily available, little is known about their private and family life.
In 2024, Tehrani was in a relationship with Australian model and Melbourne ‘it’ girl Mila Mary, according to The Herald Sun.
After Twitch banned Stake from advertising on its platform due to a lack of consumer protections, Craven (pictured) and Tehrani launched their own competing livestream service, Kick
Tehrani and Craven also established Stake.com, the largest crypto-backed online casino in the world, and have a combined fortune of US$5.6 billion fortune. Pictured: Craven’s Toorak Garden Residence
Drake (pictured in 2022) is reportedly covering the funeral costs of French online star Raphael Graven with online streamer Adin Ross. He deleted his Kick account last month amid tensions with the platform’s co-founders.
The pair connected through mutual friends in New York and Mary, 24, was by his side at the Australian Grand Prix of that year. It is unknown if they are still together.
Tehrani and Craven’s history began in the online fantasy game RuneScape, where they met as teenagers and developed an interest in cryptocurrency.
This led to the creation of Primedice, a crypto dice game, and later the online casino company Easygo, before launching the highly successful Stake.com.
During the pandemic, Stake started paying content creators on Twitch millions to livestream themselves gambling, transforming the business from $100 million in revenue to over $2 billion in two years.
After Twitch banned Stake from advertising on its platform due to a lack of consumer protections, Craven and Tehrani launched their own competing livestream service, Kick.
The platform has come under fire in the wake of the recent tragedy, with many asking why Graven’s account hadn’t been banned before his death and how it was allowed to be broadcast on the internet.
Internet users said Graven’s last Kick livestream, which was widely shared afterwards, showed him lying motionless under a bed cover.
Kick has been one of two major sponsors attached to the Sauber F1 team since rebranding from Alfa Romeo at the end of the 2023 campaign, the other being Stake
Internet users said Graven’s last Kick livestream, which was widely shared afterwards, showed him lying motionless under a bed cover
The popular Kick creator, 46, was found dead overnight on Monday, in bed at his home in Contes, near Nice
Previous streams reportedly saw him slapped, strangled, force-fed, doused in unpleasant liquids, and targeted with a paintball gun.
Graven’s channel has been removed, and Kick has launched an investigation into the tragedy.
Kick has a reputation of having a lighter approach to content moderation than Twitch, but has community guidelines that do not permit ‘content that depicts or incites abhorrent violence including significant harm, suffering or death’.
The platform also states it does not permit content which involves displays of serious and significant self-harm.
In France, the country’s junior minister for AI and digital technology, Clara Chappaz, said the death and the violence Graven allegedly suffered ‘are absolutely horrific’ and said a judicial investigation was under way.
The matter was also referred to the digital regulator Arcom, as well as France’s portal for reporting concerns about internet content.
French media previously claimed Graven had died after ‘ten days of torture’, sleep deprivation and ingestion of toxic products’.
But now, prosecutor Damien Martinelli has revealed that medical examiners believed his death ‘was not traumatic in origin’ and ‘not related to the intervention of a third party’.
He said forensic doctors had found no ‘internal or external traumatic injuries’ or burns – only a few bruises and healed lesions.
‘The probable causes of death appear to be medical and/or toxicological,’ he said.
He said further tests had been ordered, and Graven may have had a heart issue in addition to receiving treatment for a problem with his thyroid.
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