It’s early, but Kobe Inc. could end up making folks forget about Kobe Hall of Fame. OK, never happen.
But Newport Coast resident Kobe Bryant is off to as auspicious a start as a businessman as he had as an 18-year-old NBA player.
Last week’s résumé entry was turning a 2014, $6 million investment in sports-drink company BodyArmor into $200 million, a 30-bagger in trader jargon, the result of Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) taking a big stake in the company.
While the amount of Coca-Cola’s investment and the ownership percentage weren’t disclosed, it’s been widely reported that the soda giant’s buy-in values BodyArmor at about $2 billion, and that Bryant’s stake remains no less than 10%. Easy math.
Nice capital gain.
A joint press release by the two companies said the “brand will continue to operate independently.” The statement added that the deal will “allow Coca-Cola to increase its ownership stake in the future,” and few doubt that it will in the fast-growing, $20 billion global sports-drink market. PepsiCo Inc.’s Gatorade has long been the leader, but Coca-Cola had been gulping market share before the latest investment.
Kobe, Venture Capitalist
Bryant invested in BodyArmor just as he was joining former web.com Chief Executive Jeff Stibel to form Bryant Stibel. The Malibu-based investment company, which Bryant and Stibel formally capitalized with a $100 million fund in 2016, punctuated by ringing the NYSE bell. It has venture capital and growth equity arms.
Bryant Stibel’s focus is the technology, media and data industries, and has made roughly 20 investments, about 15 of them still active, according to PitchBook. The venture fund holds a piece of Derek Jeter’s Players’ Tribune, an online magazine of athletes’ bylines. The private-equity fund has growth-stage stakes in well-known brand names, including legal advice and document platform LegalZoom. In 2014, it invested in Chinese e-commerce giant AliBaba Group.
Bryant Stibel won’t pull off what co-founder Bryant did on his own with
BodyArmor, as the website says “the firm rarely invests at the seed level and most portfolio companies have already received at least one substantial round of funding from a top-tier venture firm.”
Bryant invested early in BodyArmor, when it had about $10 million in sales. And he’s bringing that renowned work ethic he showcased during his two decades with the Los Angeles Lakers. He told CNBC last fall that “in 2025, we want [BodyArmor] to be the number one sports drink … that means we have to roll up our sleeves … we have to get after it.”
BodyArmor was the latest “healthy” sports-drink creation of Queens, N.Y. native Mike Repole, founder of the Vitaminwater and Smartwater brands sold to Coca-Cola in 2007 for $4.1 billion. Repole remains the No. 1 stakeholder and chief executive of BodyArmor, Coca-Cola No. 2, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group No. 3, and Bryant now No. 4 but likely to have “exited” a bit with the Coke investment.
Repole and BodyArmor lauded their early investor in a statement: “Kobe Bryant has been an integral part of the success of the brand with his involvement in creative, marketing and partnerships. Bryant will continue to be heavily involved in the brand, especially as [we] expand to global markets.”
Bryant and his Costa Mesa-based Granity Studios surely helped grow the brand from $10 million in sales to an industry-projected $400 million this year, luring athletes like the Los Angeles Angels’ two-time MVP, Mike Trout, to endorse BodyArmor (see Bryant tweet). The Granity Chief Executive writes and directs the commercials.
Bryant set Kobe Studios—Granity is the production company— on a humble path in 2014, just as he was investing a modest amount in a new energy-drink company. According to CoStar Group records, Kobe Inc. leased a 2,073-square-foot suite in a Class B building on Bayside Drive in Newport Beach—small digs with a nice view.
Less than three years later, KOBE
Studios LLC stepped up. In December
2016, he moved operations into more than 15,000 square feet at The Hive, a 190,000-square-foot, indoor/outdoor creative-office campus that’s also home to the Los Angeles Chargers headquarters and training facility.
Granity Studios, a Bryant-coined combination of “great” and “infinity,” has already produced an Oscar winner. The 2017 animated short “Dear Basketball” is based on a poem the studio boss wrote, with music
by Steven Spielberg collaborator John Williams, a 51-time Oscar-nominated composer.
Bryant will be a first ballot entry for the NBA’s hall of fame in 2021. It appears a good bet his hall of fame speech won’t signal an exit from the limelight, only an end to athletic glory as he goes down the second path with Kobe Inc.
