Kriti Mehrotra
If there’s only one way we can ever describe Ivan Beerkus (born Ivan Artemovich Kuznetsov on May 11, 1994), it would have to be as a blend of adrenaline junkie, determined, plus loyal. After all, as explored in Netflix’s ‘Skywalkers: A Love Story,’ he has been a content-creating rooftopper for over a decade, even though his parents initially did not wholly support this passion. However, considering he has managed to conquer more than 200 structures across several nations over the years and has been recognized by many esteemed publications, it’s evident he’s thriving.
How Did Ivan Beerkus Earn His Money?
Ivan was reportedly just a young boy growing up in Moscow, Russia, when he first developed a keen interest in outdoor adventures and sports, only for it to continue expanding as time passed. In fact, whether it be aikido, classical boxing, football, swimming, or taekwondo, he dabbled in it all before ultimately finding his calling in scaling tall buildings plus photography at the age of 16. Thus, a mere year later, he climbed his first high-rise tower — Mercury City Tower — before winning the Best of Russia 2013 photo contest in the category of People, Events, and Life too
Motivated by his initial success, Ivan began traveling to different cities in his homeland to continue his extreme adventures as soon as he turned 18, all the while documenting them online. That’s how he soon secured sponsors and even expanded internationally, with his first such ascends being in China in 2014, following which he traversed parts of France, Spain, Thailand, the UAE, and Malaysia, among many more nations. He did get arrested a few times along the way since he technically trespasses into every structure he sets his sights on, yet he has always been cautiously careful not to hurt any political or religious sentiments.
It’s also imperative to note that it was through this avenue that Ivan met fellow skywalker Angela Nikolau in the mid-2010s, just for them to now be true partners in every sense of the term. That’s because, apart from doing climbs together and sharing about them online, he also helps her sell their images turned NFTs as well as her original paintings — a pursuit she began a couple of years ago. As if that’s not enough, the couple even has an online store, and he has since begun dabbling in a solo venture too — this New York-based Russian-Ukranian has been honing his skills as a musician recently.
Ivan Beerkus’ Net Worth
Since Ivan has been active in the extreme adventure community for over a decade, along with mentions in several publications like Rolling Stone, Variety, plus Hollywood Reporter, he has undoubtedly accumulated great wealth for himself. He has actually since done brand collaborations with the likes of Adidas, Cartier, Coca-Cola, Honor, Mexx, Samsung, Strellson as well as Tissot, but his primary income comes from his social media standing and the sponsored posts he does for the same.
Starting with TikTok, since this platform pays $0.02 per view while allowing influencers to charge $200-$500 per sponsored post, and Ivan only having six total posts with 654 followers and 812 likes, his income from here is a maximum of $3,000. As for Instagram, with influencers requesting $10 per 1,000 followers for a sponsored post plus him having 240k followers with a maximum of 30 such posts a year, his revenue from this platform totals $72,000 per annum. Then there’s the primary YouTube channel he runs with more than 13.7k subscribers as well as nearly 1 million views, making his earnings via this avenue $4,000, at an average of $4 per 1,000 views.
We should also mention Ivan likely gets compensated for the NFTs and paintings he helps Angela sell, all the while having a stake in their relatively recent Exit31 shop of merchandise too. This latter space sells apparel, a canvas painting of the couple, plus a photo book of 100 of their most memorable moments, so we estimate his related remuneration to be $15,000 a year. Therefore, combining all these numbers with taxes, his 12 years of experience, lifestyle expenses, possible investments with a return of 50%, and savings, we believe this photographer-videographer has a net worth of $750,000. We arrive at this number by adding 3,000, 72,000×12 years, 4,000×12 years, and 15,000×2 years (nearly 1 million) before dividing it by half to account for expenses and then multiplying 1.5 for the returns, savings, etc.
Read More: Angela Nikolau’s Net Worth: How Rich is the Skywalker?
