Durant's $250K Hugging Face Bet Could Hit $60M in Nvidia Deal

Kevin Durant's early $250,000 investment in Hugging Face could return over $60 million as Nvidia acquires the AI startup for roughly $12.9 billion.

The Economic Times reports that Durant, investing through Thirty Five Ventures with partner Rich Kleiman, put $100,000 into Hugging Face's 2018 seed round and another $150,000 into its December 2019 Series A led by Lux Capital — a total of $250,000. According to sports-biz investor Joe Pompliano, quoted via Celebrity Net Worth, Nvidia's roughly $12.93 billion acquisition of Hugging Face could push Durant's stake to well above $60 million, a roughly 240-fold increase before taxes and fees.

The investment only pays off because of Hugging Face's dramatic pivot. The Economic Times notes the company, founded in 2016, began as a chatbot offering users an artificial 'best friend.' After raising $4 million in seed funding in 2018, it shifted to open-source artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, building the model and dataset hub developers now rely on. The Economic Times also reports Hugging Face later raised a $100 million Series C in May 2022 at an estimated $2 billion valuation, with Durant and Kleiman's Thirty Five Ventures again participating — a round that grew the position beyond the earliest cheques.

The Economic Times reports Nvidia disclosed the Hugging Face acquisition at roughly $12.93 billion, one of its most significant moves deeper into AI infrastructure. Citing Reuters, The Economic Times says about $11.9 billion will go to Hugging Face stockholders, with roughly $1 billion reserved for an equity-based retention program to keep key talent in place. The Economic Times also notes Hugging Face — which hosts AI models, datasets and applications for open-source developers — was previously backed by Google, Amazon, Salesforce, AMD, Intel, and Nvidia itself.

The $60 million figure remains an estimate, not a disclosed payout. The Economic Times cautions that no specific figures of Durant's individual investments are available and that startup returns depend on complicated cap-table math, not simple multiplication. The broader pattern is striking: The Economic Times reports Durant's other bets through Thirty Five Ventures include Whoop, Coinbase, Postmates, Robinhood and Acorns, with Pompliano noting Whoop's valuation rose from roughly $125 million when Durant invested to $10.1 billion. Still, Hugging Face may become the defining win — turning a small early cheque into tens of millions through a blockbuster AI buyout.