This time, "Death God" is not reaping a competition.
Those familiar with the NBA are no strangers to Kevin Durant's nickname. Due to his slender build and nearly unstoppable scoring ability in critical moments, he is referred to by fans as the "Slim Reaper".
Recently, it was reported that Nvidia is advancing a deal to acquire Hugging Face, a globally renowned AI open-source platform, for approximately $14 billion. If the deal is finalized, it will become one of the largest acquisitions in Nvidia's history. Notably, Hugging Face's list of early investors includes Durant and his long-time business partner, Rich Kleiman.
As early as when Hugging Face was not yet a star enterprise in AI infrastructure, Durant and his long-term business partner, Rich Kleiman, had already placed a bet, investing a total of around $250,000.
After 8 years, this investment may see a super redemption. If this $14 billion acquisition is ultimately completed, the potential value of this early investment could exceed $65 million, with a potential return of around 260 times.
On the court, Durant ended the game with a jump shot, and off the court, he has been quietly making investments for nearly a decade.
Durant beat Nvidia by 5 years
Many people first learned about Hugging Face after ChatGPT sparked a global wave of interest in generative AI, but Durant had known about it much earlier.
In 2018, Hugging Face completed a seed funding round of approximately $4 million. At that time, it was far from the open-source platform familiar to global AI developers today. According to Joe Pompliano, Durant invested around $100,000 at this stage.
A year later, Hugging Face closed a roughly $15 million Series A round, with Durant investing again—about $150,000—bringing his total investment across the two rounds to approximately $250,000.
It's interesting to note that Hugging Face was not the AI infrastructure star it is today back then. The company originally started out with chatbot products, later shifting its focus to natural language processing and machine learning, and embracing an open-source approach. What truly changed its fate was the Transformer, as well as the subsequent global wave of large models that followed.
As generative AI explodes and models proliferate, developers need a place to find models, download models, share datasets, deploy applications, and collaborate on development. Hugging Face has gradually become one of the most important platforms for global AI developers. If GitHub has borne the bulk of code in the traditional software era, then to some extent, Hugging Face is playing a similar foundational role in the era of AI models.
Capital has been pouring in. In 2021, Hugging Face completed a $40 million Series B financing round; in 2022, it completed a $100 million Series C financing round, with its valuation reaching $2 billion; and in 2023, it completed a $235 million financing round, with its valuation rising to $4.5 billion. The investors in this round are a veritable who's who of tech giants, including Nvidia, Google, Amazon, AMD, Intel, IBM, Qualcomm, and Salesforce.
But Durant placed his bet earlier than many of those tech giants.
In August 2026, Hugging Face was again at the center of a deal that could reshape its trajectory. Nvidia is in advanced talks to acquire the company for roughly $14 billion. Should the transaction close, Hugging Face's valuation would more than triple from the $4.5 billion it commanded in 2023, within a span of three years.
And Durant, who entered the scene eight years ago, will also face his exit moment.
Durant's home power system is 35V
A $250,000 bet on Hugging Face appears to be a lucky star investment. However, tracing this investment further reveals that what's truly noteworthy is not Hugging Face itself, but rather the investment system that is gradually taking shape behind Durant.
Durant's early investments were not made in isolation. Around the time of his investment in Hugging Face, he and long-time business partner Rich Kleiman began to make inroads into Silicon Valley's venture capital circle, with the key platform for this investment system being Thirty Five Ventures (35V), which the two co-founded.
On the 35V website, its positioning is very clear: "35V is the family office of 2x NBA Champion Kevin Durant," meaning 35V is the family office of two-time NBA champion Kevin Durant. According to the website, 35V currently has a portfolio of investments in over 100 startups, covering Durant's personal brand, business deals, and the Durant Family Foundation.
Going back to 2016, Durant made one of the most controversial decisions in NBA history - leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder to join the Golden State Warriors. That year, he co-founded Thirty Five Ventures with long-time business partner Rich Kleiman, with "35" coming from one of the most representative jersey numbers of his career.
In retrospect, this transfer changed not only the NBA's championship landscape, but also possibly altered the trajectory of Durant's wealth, as the Golden State Warriors are based in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most densely concentrated regions for global technology and venture capital.
After the US SEC made the documents public, a review of Durant and Kleiman's experience specifically mentioned that the two "immersed themselves in the Silicon Valley ecosystem" between 2016 and 2019. They began to frequently interact with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and tech company executives, and subsequently invested in companies such as Postmates, Acorns, WHOOP, Overtime, Caffeine, Robinhood, and Coinbase.
In 2017, Durant spoke about this shift when he attended TechCrunch Disrupt, where he found himself surrounded by entrepreneurs and investors after arriving in the Bay Area.
At the time, some of Durant and Kleiman's early investments were made through The Durant Company, one of Durant's early entities for investing in and managing business interests, which was later incorporated into the business system centered around 35V.
At that time, the two had completed around 30 investments, with typical angel-round checks ranging from $500,000 to $2.5 million, and investment sizes potentially increasing to $2.5 million to $20 million by the A round.
35V has invested in over 100 companies
According to 35V's official website, its portfolio spans more than 100 startups across fintech, artificial intelligence, health and lifestyle, and media, while maintaining partnerships with venture capital and private equity firms.
If you spread out Durant's investment portfolio over the past decade, you'll find that he has almost continuously caught the waves of the tech industry's trends over the past ten years.
In the era of mobile internet and local life, he invested in Postmates; during the rise of fintech, he bet on Acorns and Robinhood; as crypto assets emerged, he entered Coinbase; in the sports tech field, he invested in WHOOP and Overtime; in the most frenzied years of Web3, 35V's investment landscape included star projects such as OpenSea and Dapper Labs.
With the advent of the generative AI era, Hugging Face, which Durant invested in eight years ago, has become a superstar company.
In its portfolio, Postmates was later acquired by Uber for approximately $2.65 billion, Coinbase went public on Nasdaq in 2021, Robinhood completed its IPO, WHOOP grew into a prominent fitness wearable company, and Overtime became a sports content and emerging events platform.
Looking at any single investment, luck may play a role, but when these projects are put into a portfolio of over 100 companies, Durant's approach is more like that of a genuine early-stage investment firm, rather than just a sports celebrity who occasionally writes checks for startups.
From investing in companies to buying sports teams
More noteworthy is that Durant's capital layout is entering a new phase.
In the early days, 35V primarily took minority stakes in startups as a financial investor. Nowadays, Durant is increasingly putting his money into another type of scarce asset - professional sports teams and leagues.
In 2020, Durant acquired approximately 5% of the Philadelphia Union, a Major League Soccer (MLS) team, with an option to purchase an additional 5% in the future. Two years later, 35V joined the ownership group of Gotham FC, a team in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL).
He then turned his attention to pickleball, which is growing rapidly in the US. In 2022, 35V acquired an expansion team in Major League Pickleball, further expanding its assets in professional sports leagues.
But it was Paris Saint-Germain that truly took Durant's sports asset map beyond the United States. In 2024, Durant initially entered the Paris Saint-Germain system indirectly through sports investment firm Arctos Partners. Subsequently, Durant's Boardroom Sports Holdings reached a cooperation agreement with Qatar Sports Investments, the controlling shareholder of Paris Saint-Germain, directly obtaining a minority stake in PSG.
Paris Saint-Germain officials even directly described Boardroom Sports Holdings as Kevin Durant's "personal investment vehicle" for holding shares in sports teams and leagues.
So far, Durant's capital layout has shown two clear main lines, one continuing to invest in technology and startups through Thirty Five Ventures, and the other starting to lay out professional teams and sports leagues through Boardroom Sports Holdings.
The 35V website currently lists sports assets including Paris Saint-Germain, Philadelphia Union, Gotham FC, and the DC Pickleball Team.
Durant was more like a VC in his early years, but now he is increasingly like a sports asset investor.
Boardroom is a sports business media company that provides news, analysis, and insights on the intersection of sports, business, and culture. Founded by Kevin Durant, Rich Kleiman, and other industry experts, Boardroom offers a unique perspective on the sports industry, covering topics such as player contracts, endorsements, and investments. The company's content includes articles, podcasts, and social media posts, featuring interviews with athletes, executives, and other key figures in the sports world. Boardroom has established itself as a leading voice in the sports business media landscape, with a strong focus on storytelling and in-depth analysis.
If 35V is responsible for capital allocation, then Boardroom is responsible for influence and content assets.
In 2019, Durant and Kleiman co-founded Boardroom, initially perceived as a sports business media outlet, but after several years of development, it has expanded into a platform spanning sports, media, and entertainment, with businesses covering content, sports business events, membership networks, and film and television production.
So far, Durant's business system has become clear, with 35V serving as his family office, handling startup investments, personal business interests, and his foundation, among other things. Boardroom is responsible for media, content, and sports entertainment IP. Boardroom Sports Holdings further handles investments in sports teams and league assets.
The Other Side of the "Grim Reaper"
In 2007, at age 19, Durant entered the NBA as the No. 2 overall pick. Slim and not particularly strong, the near-seven-footer had guard-like ball handling and a shot that was nearly impossible to block. Over the next two decades, he won one regular-season MVP, two NBA championships, two Finals MVPs and four scoring titles, made 16 All-Star appearances, and collected four Olympic gold medals with the U.S. men's national team.
Beyond basketball, Durant has long been trying to convert the income and influence he created on the court into long-term equity. Over the past twenty years, this has also become a common choice for more and more top athletes, from earning salaries and endorsements to becoming angel investors, fund partners, company shareholders, and even direct owners of professional teams.
Durant is not alone in this approach. LeBron James has followed a classic "IP plus industry holding" model, acquiring rights tied to Liverpool of the Premier League in his early years and later becoming a shareholder in Fenway Sports Group, while also building out film, content and cultural IP through The SpringHill Company.
Kobe Bryant co-founded Bryant Stibel with entrepreneur Jeff Stibel, focusing on investments in technology, media, and consumer sectors, including an investment in sports drink brand BodyArmor, which yielded significant returns after Coca-Cola's eventual acquisition, becoming a classic case of a sports star's equity investment.
Andre Iguodala has moved closer to becoming a professional venture capitalist. The former Golden State Warriors star, long active in Silicon Valley's investing scene, later joined a professional VC firm. Stephen Curry, meanwhile, has built out brand, media, consumer and investment ventures around SC30, while also serving as a special advisor at venture firm Penny Jar Capital.
This trend has long since extended beyond the NBA. Tennis legend Serena Williams founded Serena Ventures and serves as its Managing Partner. An earlier generation's Earvin "Magic" Johnson, meanwhile, has invested through Magic Johnson Enterprises across movie theaters, restaurants, technology, infrastructure, and professional sports assets.
The arena will eventually have its final curtain call, but capital has no retirement whistle. The game that belongs to player Kevin Durant will eventually come to an end, while the game that belongs to investor Durant may just be getting started.