Kevin Durant is investing “an undisclosed amount” in tech start-up Rubik, according to Jon Swartz of USA TODAY Sports. This is the latest in a string of similar investments from Durant who has seemingly taken a bigger interest in tech companies since moving closer to Silicon Valley.
Rubik specializes in data backup and recovery, creating a product used by several companies for more secure handling of confidential data.
Durant on the investment and recent interest:
“It’s a perfect opportunity” in the business-to-business market that is a “major play for us,” Durant told USA TODAY exclusively on Monday, a day before he was to represent the cloud-data management start-up at the VMworld technology conference in Las Vegas.
“Being in Silicon Valley, I play in front of (tech executives) and run into them at restaurants,” says Durant, in explaining his growing list of tech investments.
Durant is one of several NBA players emerging in the tech field as investors, including teammates Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala.
Durant was seemingly very eager to get involved and showed a lot of knowledge in the business already:
The marketing team at Rubrik connected with Durant via NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott, an early investor in Rubrik, says Bipul Sinha, CEO of the 500-person company valued at $1.3 billion.
“We were blown away by KD’s know-how in tech, and his team’s thought process on Silicon Valley,” Sinha says. “The prominence of the tech industry has not gone unnoticed by players. Tech impacts the broader economy, and athletes use and understand devices such as smartphones.”
