Kevin Durant Launching A SPAC That Could Target Sports Or Cryptocurrency

One of the biggest National Basketball Association stars is dipping his toes into the SPAC market, becoming the latest celebrity or athlete to attach themselves the fast-growing investment sector. Kevin Durant brings an experienced investment team and has a strong track record of investments.

The SPAC: Durant is launching Infinite Acquisition Corp, a SPAC seeking to raise $200 million by selling 20 million units at $10 each.

Each unit will include one common share and one half of a warrant exercisable at a price of $11.50.

The SPAC will trade as NFNT.U for units on the NYSE and trade as NFNT and NFNT.W for common shares and warrants after the units split.

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Management Team: The SPAC is a 50-50 partnership between Thirty Five Ventures and LionTree. Thirty Five Ventures was co-founded by Durant and entrepreneur Rich Kleiman. LionTree is a leading investment and merchant bank.

Thirty Five Ventures, launched in 2016, has invested in several companies over the years including Postmates, Acorns, Whoop, Overtime, Caffeine, Robinhood Markets Inc HOOD and Coinbase Global Inc COIN. The duo also invested in Major League Soccer team Philadelphia Union. Sports business media platform Boardroom was launched by Thirty Five Ventures as well.

Prior to founding Thirty Five Ventures, Kleiman launched Roc Nation Sports with Jay-Z and served as the company’s vice president from 2008 to 2016. Kleiman started with Roc Nation in 2008 as a music manager for several artists.

Thirty Five Ventures was an investor on the PIPE of the SPAC merger between RedBall Acquisition Corp RBAC and SeatGeek.

LionTree has advised more than $600 billion worth of deals since it was founded in 2012. The company owns Kindred Media, a direct-to-consumer media company launched in 2018.

LionTree has experience in the SPAC industry, acting as an advisor on several mergers including 23andMe Holding Co. ME, Hims & Hers Health Inc HIMS and others.

Target Area: The SPAC prospectus has laid out a plan to target a company in the following sectors: sports, health and wellness, food tech and supply, e-commerce, and crypto and digital assets.

“In the last decade, we have seen a global shift to the digital economy as technology has enabled unlimited consumer choice, boundless scale and uncapped opportunities,” the prospectus reads.

Investors could be drawn into the possibility of Durant bringing a sports company public. The prospectus highlights the crypto area, which could be another big target area, given Durant’s early exposure to cryptocurrency with his investment in Coinbase in 2017.

The prospectus highlights the rise of platforms such as Coinbase, Kraken and BlockFi, and there are discussions about SuperRare, Dapper Labs, Axie Infinity, Decentraland, Sorare and non-fungible tokens.

Photo: Cyrus Saatsaz via Wikimedia Commons