Kevin Durant Board Advisor and Investor, Rubrik

Rubrik, Inc. announced that NBA champion and entrepreneur Kevin Durant has joined the company’s team as an investor and board advisor.

“Kevin has deep business relationships around the globe and he has created a brand that represents excellence and authenticity,” said Bipul Sinha, co-founder and CEO. “We are thrilled to welcome Kevin to the Rubrik team.”

The basketball player will leverage his experience creating a global brand empire to advise the B2B tech company on strategic initiatives. He will also advise on content development opportunities through his Thirty Five Media business arm, which includes his well-received YouTube channel.

Durant is a member of the 2017 NBA Championship Golden State Warriors and the MVP of the 2017 NBA Finals.

Through The Durant company, he is a venture capital investor in technology companies including Postmates, Acorns and Propel. A dedicated philanthropist, his Kevin Durant Charity Foundation works to enrich the lives of at-risk youth through educational, athletic and social programs.

“I invest in game-changing companies with a winning spirit,” said Durant. “Rubrik is a rising tech powerhouse taking on a $48 billion market opportunity. I’m excited to support Bipul and his team as they build a global brand.”

Founded in 2014, Rubrik has reached an annualized booking run rate of nearly $150 million. To date, the firm has raised over $292 million in funding from venture capital firms such as IVP, Lightspeed Ventures, Greylock Partners and Khosla Ventures. The company has also received funding from prominent angel investors including John W. Thompson, chairman of Microsoft; Frank Slootman, former CEO of ServiceNow; Mark Leslie, former CEO of Veritas; and Dheeraj Pandey, CEO of Nutanix.

Comments

What the hoop star is doing as board advisor and investor at Rubrik?

What kind of advices he could make? We respect Durant, one of the best worldwide basketball player last season but we doubt that he knows precisely what is a software-defined platform that unifies backup, instant recovery, replication, search, analytics, archival, compliance, and copy data management in one secure fabric across the data center and cloud.

How much he invested? The amount was not revealed but probably few bucks. Before this announcement, total investment received by Rubrik was $292 million. Now the company states: "To date, the firm has raised over $292 million in funding."

For Rubrik it's essentially a good piece of publicity, for a company at 35 miles from Oakland Coliseum, home of the Golden State Warriors.

If Rubrik filed for an IPO or find an acquirer, Durant will get a tiny amount of money, far from its currently total earnings of $60.6 million.