A Glimpse of NBA Star Durant's Crypto Investment Landscape
Last week, NBA star Kevin Durant withdrew his trade application and accepted the "recruitment" of the Brooklyn Nets. The team owner Tsai Chongxin finally breathed a sigh of relief. A series of farces that lasted nearly two months has finally come to an end.
When Curry led the Warriors from the trough to the top of the NBA again, Durant, who chose to leave three years ago and came to Brooklyn to start a new hill, began to fall into a very embarrassing situation. This summer, he has always been at the center of the whirlpool of public opinion— —Almost all the media and fans are questioning the gold content of his consecutive championships and two FMVP (Finals Most Valuable Player) wins with the Golden State Warriors from 2017 to 2018, and even NBA officials released it in this year's draft The animations also seem to refer to him as the "champion of freewheeling". Amidst layers of doubts, people seem to almost forget how glorious Durant was when he was in Golden State, and he has the momentum to become the number one player in the league.
But no matter what, Kevin Durant can still be at the top of the NBA, and his performance on the off-court investment track is rarely known in China, but it is also wonderful.
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Hold tight to a16z's "thighs" and have invested in hundreds of companies
In 2016, Durant and his friend and manager Rich Kleiman (Rich Kleiman) founded Thirty Five Ventures, an investment firm focused on fintech, cryptocurrency, health and wellness, media, and more. Rand created the basis for its own business empire. Leveraging his deep relationships in venture capital and private equity, 35 Ventures has grown step by step, with a portfolio of more than 100 companies to date, and in-depth strategic cooperation with some partners on strategy, content and marketing initiatives.
35 Ventures has provided early investment of 250,000 to 1 million US dollars to about 30 companies in its first two years. In addition to the online digital currency platform Coinbase, there are spare parts application Acorns, cloud computing startup Rubrik, fast casual Pizza chain Pieology, bike-sharing company LimeBike and delivery company Postmates, among others. How can a basketball player have the confidence and ability to deal with turbulent business investments?
As mentioned above, after Durant left Oklahoma and chose to join the Golden State Warriors, he not only worked with Curry to establish the Warriors' absolute dominance in the NBA, but also made full use of the unique commercial resources in the Bay Area , and began to play investment with the venture capitalists. Durant once said in an interview with ESPN, the sports media, that he has a team like Ron Conway, a famous angel investor in Silicon Valley, an early investor in Google and Facebook, and Ben Horowitz, co-founder of a16z, a top venture capital institution. ) such a mentor, and also maintained good friendships with a16z partner Chris Lyons (Chris Lyons) and others. This is indeed the case. Looking through the investment list of Thirty Five Ventures, it is easy to find that the projects they invest in will always be led by top venture capital institutions such as a16z, such as the payment application Valora based on the Celo platform, the sports social and game platform sleeper, Startups such as financial technology startup Titan and artificial intelligence healthcare company Memora Health are basically projects led by a16z.
In addition to private information sharing and communication, Durant also launched a formal official cooperation with a16z. In 2018, a16z took the initiative to launch a special fund called "Cultural Leadership Fund (CLF)", and finally raised $15 million. In addition to movie star Will Smith (Will Smith), Durant also participated in the investment. among them. CLF aims to purposefully focus on creating opportunities for people of color in tech, and a16z has also pledged to donate all of its management fees and carried interest to nonprofits that help the Black community and increase participation of people of color in tech .
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Passionate about digital collections, laying out NFT in multiple vertical fields
According to the investment portfolio of Thirty Five Ventures, it can be seen that Durant has a clear preference for collectibles companies. The traditional collectibles trading platforms he invests in include: Collectors, collectable, goldin and starstock. The main collections of these platforms are football stars. Cards, sportswear, etc. At the moment when NFT, a digital collection, is all the rage, he will naturally not miss the attention of this track, not to mention that he himself is one of the protagonists of the well-known NFT project NBA Top Shot.
NBA Top Shot is the first NBA digital collectible game created by the NBA and Dapper Labs, launching in October 2020. Its general framework is "NFT + traditional star card", but different from the traditional printed star card, the digital version of the star card has a more flexible presentation method. In addition to pictures and text, NBA Top Shot's star card also contains a specific wonderful moment . These digital star cards have attracted the attention and active participation of many NFT enthusiasts, NBA fans, and physical star card collectors, and are one of the most popular NFT projects.
In March last year, Dapper Labs raised $305 million in funding, and more than 30 well-known investors participated in this round of financing, including Durant and Michael Jordan. Six months later, Dapper Labs and Thirty Five Ventures' media company Boardroom reached a two-year partnership to provide fans with giveaways, highlight moments and behind-the-scenes video recordings through co-branded events. Soon after, NBA Top Shot launched a TV and social media ad campaign featuring Durant in January of this year, and gave out a free Durant NFT "moment" to those who first purchased a Top Shot package.
Regarding the prospects and development of NBA Top Shot and NFT, Durant is very confident and submitted 26 trademark applications for Metaverse and NFT in May this year. "Top Shot is the future of basketball fans, bringing them closer to the players and building community across the sport of basketball in novel ways. We've also been at the forefront of the NFT space and I'm excited to be working with NFT to take NFT even further Push it to the mainstream." Almost at the same time, Thirty Five Ventures established a commercial partnership with Coinbase. According to the agreement, Thirty Five Ventures will jointly create NFT works with Coinbase. In addition, the partnership will include philanthropic integration with the Kevin Durant Charitable Foundation, education around crypto, NFT news and creation, philanthropy, and more.
In addition to the above-mentioned well-known companies, Durant has also invested in a number of NFT projects, including games, wallets, digital collections, etc.
Participated in the $18 million Series A financing of Rainbow, a Web3 mobile wallet startup. As an encryption startup building a mobile wallet application, Rainbow allows users to interact with decentralized applications on the Ethereum blockchain and tries to get out of the process Extract as much technical knowledge as possible to make buying or selling NFTs as simple as possible.
Participated in the seed round of Web3 gaming startup Artie, which eventually raised $10 million in funding. Artie is dedicated to building app-free mobile gaming technologies, creating an immersive metaverse of instantly accessible mobile games and authentic interactive experiences. According to the official statement, its second-generation Artie NFT "I'm Have Dead" is expected to be launched a month later, jointly created by the artist Junkyard and the well-known music production group Take A Daytrip.
Invested in Andbox's e-sports team New York Subliners (NYSL), which belongs to the American professional Call of Duty League (CDL). Half a year later, NYSL announced the launch of a team-exclusive NFT based on the public chain Flow. This series of digital collections will record NYSL's past and future honors and highlights on the field. This is also the first attempt to combine CDL and NFT.
Participated in the A-round financing of Hang, an NFT membership platform. Hang plans to use NFT to connect brands with members and motivate customers with rewards and perks. Currently, it has cooperated with brands such as Budweiser and Pinkberry.
Invested in NFT studio Through The Lens, which aims to provide unique digital collectibles centered on the personal brands of athletes and celebrities, connect fans with them through digital collectibles, and build a close-knit community.
"Don't do things just for money, don't do things for fame. Do things because it makes you feel right, it feels real." Talking about the best business advice in mind, Durant said this sentence. Just like many investment institutions and projects are reorganizing, cultivating internal strength, and reinvigorating themselves in the cold winter of encryption, Durant's career has reached a crossroads. If he can stick to the Nets, he can climb from the bottom like Curry Coming out may win more respect, and it is also the most correct path at present. When there is no storm and strong rain, the moon can only be seen when the clouds open.
