easymoneysniper

New Beginnings

On Monday, July 4th, 2016, Kevin Durant announced his decision to begin the next chapter of his basketball career with the Golden State Warriors.

At the time, KD was averaging 28.2 points per game, 8.2 rebounds, and 5 assists, on 51-39-89 shooting splits. He was widely considered to be the most elite scorer in the league, and created a summer’s worth of controversy by joining a Golden State team that just posted a historical 73-9 regular season record.

The decision overshadowed an equally bold move in his business life.

Later that summer, Kevin Durant joined forces with his longtime manager, Rich Kleiman, to create Thirty-Five Ventures (fka The Durant Company), a family office for venture capital investing and other business endeavors.

The duo has set a gold standard for other athletes and celebrities:

  • 100+ startup investments

  • 4 exits

  • $30M+ deployed

  • Co-invests alongside a16z, Y-Combinator, Spark Capital, Jeff Bezos, and more

Let’s take a look at how the slim reaper built a fat portfolio of early stage assets…

Dealflow by Durant

Upon arriving in the Bay, Durant was introduced to Ben Horowitz, co-founder at a16z. Ben, along with Ron Conway, a super angel who was early to Google, brought plenty of dealflow to the 35V office.

To date, a16z is the most common co-investor / lead on 35V deals.

Rich Kleiman is inextricably linked to Roc Nation, where he helped launch their sports agency unit around the time he met KD. The relationship he has with Jay-Z, Roc Nation founder, led to more than a few opportunities, such as $2.7B insurtech startup, Ethos.

KD and Rich also made a fund level investment in CerraCap Ventures, a VC fund focused on cybersecurity, AI, and deeptech opportunities.

❝

I used to think billionaire venture capital firms got a hold of one company, invested in it, and it blew up… I didn’t know that they got 100 deals to look at in a day and pick the best 9 or 10 to look at. That’s a lot of work.

Mr. Durant, mid-range enthusiast

 

The Real Unicorn

35V disproportionately deploys capital into fintech, sports, and media, with some other notable stakes in artificial intelligence, wearables, and data.

The company’s most visible win came from Postmates, where KD’s $1M investment was rumored to be worth $15M after a $2.65B Uber acquisition.

Other intriguing investments include:

  • Mercury: $1.6B valuation. Digital banking for startups with no fees. After SVB’s failure, Mercury picked up more than $2B in deposits, and retained 90%+ of new customers. a16z, Coatue, Sapphire Ventures, and Jack Altman participated in the Series B raise in 2021

  • roi: ~$20M+ valuation. A one-stop-shop that tracks net worth for the modern investor; provides users with an overview of all holdings - stocks, crypto, collectibles, and more. 35V bought in at the seed round which was led by Spark Capital and included Google’s Gradient Ventures + Balaji Srinivasan (former Coinbase CTO).

  • Brooklyn Aces / MLP: ~$15M+ valuation. 35V swooped a stake in the Brooklyn Aces as well as the MLP itself. The team is estimated to have sold in the mid six figure range and currently trades for 15-20M. Brooklyn Aces compete in the second tier of MLP competition known as the Challenger Level. Co-investors include Drake and Michael B. Jordan.

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