Andre Iguodala is walking into a new chapter of his career.
The Golden Warriors star will now lead Mosaic, his $200 million VC fund, with co-founder Rudy Cline-Thomas, per reports.
The venture is a long time coming, originally birthed from Iguodala’s interest in purchasing tech stocks, which began in 2010. Then he took an interest in startups. Among his many investments, Iguodala was also an early adopter to video meeting-focused platform Zoom before the Covid-19 pandemic, making him a major visionary (and probably very wealthy).
“When I initially went out to the Bay Area, it was my intent to have success on and off the court,” Iguodala explained. “I thought about how to get access.”
He previously said in another interview reasoning behind his retirement: “It’s just the right time,” Iguodala told ESPN of his decision to retire.
“Time started to get limited for me, and I didn’t want to put anything in the back seat.”
The fund will focus on early-stage funding for enterprise software, fintech, and sports companies, per reports. Portfolio companies have included Allbirds, Hims, Coinbase, and Carta.
The move comes after he played for the Golden State Warriors for 19 seasons. “It’s been a blessing to play for that long,” Iguodala told the outlet. “I don’t know if it’s actually hit me yet.”
He and Cline-Thomas aim to continue to scale the fund and according to an earlier Forbes interview, it will be a valiant team effort.
“I think I always try to first work with good people, great minds,” he said. “We always say, ‘You invest in the company, you invest in the person. You know you’re investing in the founder, you’re investing in the CEO, you’re investing into the person with the vision more so than the company. There’s a lot of great ideas out there but the execution is key. You’ve got to have people who execute, build great teams, who understand the hard work ethic that you need to have to overcome obstacles and put the right minds together.”