While you weren’t looking, Nas has made a name for himself in Silicon Valley. Now that Amazon has acquired the company for a whopping $1.2 billion, Nas has earned a pretty penny for his early investment in Ring, a smart doorbell company.
WeBuyBlack reports the rapper has made over $40 million in the deal. While the rapper hasn’t confirmed the news, it wouldn’t be surprising. Ring racked up $415 million in sales last year, a huge jump in sales from their 2016 sales of $170 million. Critics suggest Amazon plans to integrate Ring into its Amazon Key feature that looks to be the next wave of home delivery service. The company released a statement about the big news this week.
“Ring is committed to our mission to reduce crime in neighborhoods by providing effective yet affordable home security tools to our neighbors that make a positive impact on our homes, our communities, and the world,” founder Jamie Smirnoff said. “We’ll be able to achieve even more by partnering with an inventive, customer-centric company like Amazon. We look forward to being a part of the Amazon team as we work toward our vision for safer neighborhoods.”
The rap legend has kept his deals low key. He teamed up with Anthony Saleh to create his venture capital company and shared with CNBC his journey.
“I think anyone can be involved with investing if they have the means, but I’d advise anyone who wants to invest to be careful. You have to study it,” he said in 2016. “It’s not easy to find the projects that are going to generate a return, and you have to invest your time and energy — not just your money — into researching the companies that are going to do big things.”
Since the creation of his Queensbridge Venture enterprise, the rap legend has also successfully backed startups like Genius (formerly Rap Genius), Lyft and SeatGeek.
Nice to see his long list of investments paying off.
https://www.vibe.com/2018/03/nas-40-million-amazon-ring-buyout/
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