Kevin Durant Venture Multiplier & Waterfall Analyzer
Source: Joe Pompliano & Bleacher Report (@KDTrey5 35V Investment) • Thesis: $250k Seed Check to $60M+ Exit Waterfall
Net Exit Proceeds
$60,185,185
+$59,935,185 profit
Return Multiplier (MOIC)
240.7x
~96.4% Annualized IRR
Initial Check & Entry
$250,000
At $15.0M Post-Money Valuation
Final Diluted Stake
0.466%
Down from 1.667% initial stake
Deal Parameters
Athlete Check Size$250,000
Entry Post-Money Valuation$15,000,000
Subsequent Rounds Dilution72.0%
Series A through Series D institutional dilution & option pool expanders.
Acquisition / Exit Valuation$12,900,000,000
Holding Period (Years)6.0 Years
Valuation Step-Up & Proceeds Progression ($M)
Hugging Face VC Series
Cap Table Dilution & Waterfall Schedule
Funding Stage
Company Valuation
Athlete Ownership %
Implied Position Value
Round Dilution
The 35V Early-Stage Playbook
Kevin Durant and business partner Rich Kleiman founded 35V (Thirty Five Ventures), shifting athlete capital from passive endorsements to direct equity capitalization. By entering at seed/Series A valuations ($15M–$40M), early dilution is vastly outweighed by power-law compounding.
Dilution vs. Appreciation Delta
KD’s original ~1.67% ownership was diluted by ~72% across sequential venture rounds (Series A, B, C, D) down to ~0.47%. However, company enterprise value grew 860x ($15M to $12.9B), turning a modest $250K check into over $60,000,000.
Power-Law Athlete Portfolios
Venture returns follow an extreme Pareto distribution. Single deals like Hugging Face or Postmates (acquired by Uber) return multiple full fund lifecycles, compensating for early-stage portfolio write-downs and proving the asymmetric upside of tech allocation.