Kevin Durant’s connection with Hugging Face began well before the company became closely associated with open-source artificial intelligence.

The basketball star reportedly invested $100,000 in Hugging Face during its 2018 seed round and followed that with another $150,000 during the company’s Series A financing in 2019. The two investments, made through Thirty Five Ventures, the investment operation associated with Durant and his longtime business partner Rich Kleiman, brought his reported early commitment to $250,000.

That relatively small early-stage bet is now drawing attention because of Nvidia‘s roughly $12.9 billion acquisition of Hugging Face. Sports business investor Joe Pompliano has estimated that Durant’s investment could be worth more than $60 million following the transaction. The precise value of Durant’s holding has not been publicly disclosed, so the $60 million figure remains an estimate rather than a confirmed payout.

Durant invested before Hugging Face became the AI platform people know today

The timing of Durant’s first investment is arguably the more interesting part of the story.

Founded in 2016, Hugging Face was initially known for a chatbot designed to let users interact with an artificial “best friend”. When the company raised a $4 million seed round in 2018, Durant was among its investors.

Hugging Face subsequently shifted towards open-source artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies. In December 2019, it raised a $15 million Series A round led by Lux Capital, with Durant again named among the investors. That change in direction eventually positioned the company around tools and resources used for working with AI models.

In other words, Durant’s investment was not simply a late bet on the generative AI boom. His money went into the company while its business was still evolving and before Hugging Face had developed into the platform it is associated with today.

The $250,000-to-$60-million calculation comes with an important caveat

Pompliano’s estimate is based on the reported $100,000 seed investment and another $150,000 investment during the Series A round. If the more than $60 million estimate proves accurate, the value would represent roughly a 240-fold increase on the original $250,000 invested.

But the calculation should not be treated as a straightforward return multiple.

Startup ownership can change over successive funding rounds, and the final proceeds received by an investor cannot necessarily be determined simply by comparing an early cheque with a company’s eventual acquisition price. Durant’s exact investment figures and eventual proceeds have not been publicly disclosed.

Durant and Kleiman also participated through Thirty Five Ventures in Hugging Face’s $100 million Series C funding round in May 2022, when the company was valued at an estimated $2 billion.

Nvidia’s $12.9 billion acquisition changes the equation

The transaction values Hugging Face at about $12.93 billion. Nvidia is expected to pay roughly $11.9 billion to Hugging Face shareholders, while another $1 billion is intended for an equity-based retention programme.

Hugging Face has grown into a platform providing AI models, datasets and applications for developers working with open-source artificial intelligence. Its list of previous backers includes Google, Amazon, Salesforce, AMD, Intel and Nvidia.

That makes Durant’s investment noteworthy for more than the headline return. His first cheque arrived when Hugging Face was still associated with a consumer chatbot, years before its evolution into an important platform for the broader AI developer ecosystem.

Hugging Face is not Durant’s only technology investment

Durant and Kleiman have used Thirty Five Ventures to invest across technology, sports, media and consumer businesses.

The portfolio includes companies such as Whoop, Coinbase, Postmates, Robinhood and Acorns. Pompliano has also highlighted Durant’s early investment in Whoop, which was valued at roughly $125 million at the time of his investment and later reached a valuation of $10.1 billion.

Still, Hugging Face stands apart because of how early Durant entered and how dramatically the company changed after that investment.

What began as a reported $100,000 seed cheque in 2018, followed by another $150,000 a year later, could now represent one of the most valuable technology bets in Durant’s investment portfolio.

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