Kevin Durant’s $250,000 Hugging Face Bet Could Be Worth $60 Million After Nvidia Deal

Kevin Durant’s early bet on Hugging Face could turn a relatively small venture investment into one of the NBA star’s biggest technology wins.

Durant and his business partner, Rich Kleiman, invested in Hugging Face during its early funding rounds, years before Nvidia reportedly agreed to buy the AI platform for $12.9 billion. Joe Pompliano said he was told Durant invested $100,000 in the seed round and another $150,000 in the Series A.

That would put his reported initial investment at $250,000. Pompliano subsequently estimated the stake could be worth more than $60 million if Nvidia completes the reported transaction, implying a 240-fold increase, or about 24,000% of the original capital.

Neither Durant nor Thirty Five Ventures has publicly confirmed the two investment amounts. Nvidia and Hugging Face have not confirmed the reported acquisition.

Durant Got Into Hugging Face Early

Hugging Face has publicly confirmed Durant and Kleiman as investors.

The company named both in its 2022 Series C announcement, when it raised $100 million at a valuation of about $2 billion. Thirty Five Ventures was also identified among the investors. 

Contemporary coverage of Hugging Face’s earlier funding rounds also identified Durant as an investor in its 2018 seed round and 2019 Series A.

The size of those checks, however, has not been disclosed by Hugging Face or Thirty Five Ventures. The $100,000 and $150,000 figures come from Pompliano, who said he had been told those were Durant’s investments.

That makes the $250,000 figure an estimate rather than a disclosed investment record.

The $60 Million Figure Has a Missing Number

The viral calculation looks simple: $250,000 invested, $12.9 billion acquisition valuation, more than $60 million in implied value.

But the public record does not contain the number needed to make that calculation precise: Durant’s final ownership percentage.

Hugging Face raised additional funding after Durant’s reported seed and Series A investments, including its $100 million Series C and $235 million Series D. Durant and Kleiman were still listed among the company’s investors in the Series C financing. 

Those later rounds could have changed the size of an early investor’s stake. Durant and his investment vehicles may also have participated in later financing. The public disclosures do not show how much he ultimately invested or what percentage he owned.

So even if Nvidia buys Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, $60 million remains Pompliano’s inferred mark rather than a published cap-table calculation.

And it would not necessarily be cash in Durant’s account. The eventual consideration could include stock or other terms, while taxes, lockups and the structure of the investment vehicle would affect what an investor ultimately receives.

Nvidia Was Already An Investor

Nvidia’s reported purchase would also build on an existing relationship.

Nvidia participated in Hugging Face’s $235 million Series D financing in 2023, when the company was valued at about $4.5 billion. Later reporting said Nvidia had previously offered $500 million at a valuation of roughly $7 billion, a proposal Hugging Face rejected.

The reported $12.9 billion transaction would value the company at nearly three times that 2023 valuation.

It would also put Nvidia in control of one of the most important distribution points for open-source AI models. Hugging Face hosts models, datasets and development tools used by researchers and developers around the world.

That strategic position helps explain why the reported price is far above the company’s last disclosed private valuation.

The Timing Is What Makes Durant’s Bet Stand Out

Durant and Kleiman launched Thirty Five Ventures in 2016, the same year Hugging Face was founded.

The company began as a chatbot aimed at teenagers before evolving into a platform for open-source machine-learning models and datasets. Thirty Five Ventures later built a portfolio that included Coinbase, Robinhood, Postmates, Acorns, DraftKings and Whoop.

Hugging Face is notable because Durant entered before the company became a major AI infrastructure and distribution platform.

The reported Nvidia deal would put that early investment in a very different light. But the final return cannot yet be established from the public record.

For now, the defensible version of the story is narrower: Durant and Kleiman were early Hugging Face investors, a reported $12.9 billion Nvidia acquisition could dramatically increase the value of that stake, and the widely circulated $60 million figure remains an estimate rather than a confirmed payout.