Los Angeles, CA – July 13, 2016 – LA Live: Steph Curry on the ESPYS red carpet
(Photo by Scott Clarke / ESPN Images)
Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry may want to thank his wife, Ayesha, if Pinterest, a virtual ideas board, moves forward with an initial public offering.
The two-time NBA MVP, who invests in tech startups and earlier this month co-hosted the inaugural Players Technology Summit with teammate Andre Iguodala to help other pro athletes invest in tech startups, says he put money into Pinterest a few years ago as an introduction to tech investing, in part after being introduced to the app through his wife.
The opportunity was a way for him to get “skin in the game,” serving as a crash course in tech investing as he developed his skills and knowledge base.
While he’s not active in the day-to-day operations of Pinterest, he has held onto his shares — a small stake — and watched the company grow from a startup into a mature company that’s being floated as the next social media company to potentially go public after Snapchat’s market debut earlier this year.
Curry hasn’t disclosed the size of his investment, but any early investment in a startup that ultimately leads to an IPO would reap a handsome return on investment.
“That was one of my other early investments that I could follow and grow with,” Curry said in a recent interview with Bloomberg. “It’s been fun learning from that, and hopefully I can continue to grow my expertise in the investing game.”
In June, Pinterest announced a $150 million funding round, led by a handful of its existing investors, that valued the company around $12.3 billion.
Earlier this year, Recode reported that Pinterest was on track to make more than $500 million in revenue this year, which would make it among the few social media companies that have actually shown sharp revenue growth ahead of an IPO. Pinterest made $300 million in 2016, a drastic increase from $100 million in the year before that. It began offering ads in the form of “promoted pins,” which enable advertisers to push their image or video posts to targeted users, in 2014.
In March, citing sources close to the company, Recode reported that a Pinterest IPO wasn’t imminent, but that the company was putting a plan into place after poaching Todd Morgenfeld, now Pinterest’s Chief Financial Officer, from Twitter last October.
