“Kobe Bryant made $400 million from a $6 million investment”: How Lakers legend’s estate made more money from BodyArmor than ‘Black Mamba’ did by playing 20 years

Kobe Bryant invested merely $6 million into BodyArmor in 2014 and that investment went up to a $400 million pay-out in 2021. 

Kobe Bryant seemed to have always been ahead of the curve from a financial standpoint. His investments in various start-ups and established companies in the tech-industry were quite the business savvy decisions as almost all have netted massive profits for the Los Angeles Lakers legend. 

Kobe had stated on multiple occasions that he was just as invested in the business side of things as he was in basketball. “I got tired of telling people I loved business as much as I did basketball because people would look at me like I had three heads,” said the 5x champ in 2017.

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Kobe Bryant, along with his business partner, Jeff Stibel, founded a venture capital firm worth $100 million in 2013 and used this to invest a plethora of businesses that they felt were the right choices. 

Bryant Stibel had invested in everything from Epic Games (creators of Fortnite) to Alibaba. Aside from investments, ‘Bean’ was also fond of making donations, as he donated $1 million to the Call of Duty Endowment and partnered with Make-a-Wish several times. 

Kobe Bryant made $400 million off a $6 million investment. 

Kobe Bryant was early in investing into BodyArmor, a sports energy drink that rivals the likes of Gatorade and other electrolytic drinks. He bought into the company with a 10% stake in 2014 which cost him about $6 million. 

Fast-forward to late 2021, that investment of his sky-rocketed as did the company’s grasp over the sports drink market that was dominated by Gatorade, owning about 70% of the market. Coca-Cola bought BodyArmor for $5.6B and this meant Bryant’s estate was in for a huge pay-out.

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That $6 million investment turned out to become a whopping $400 million pay-out, with $200 million on paper. This was undoubtedly the biggest financial success the Philly native had as his earnings from playing 2 whole decades in the NBA came up to $323 million.