Brian Nichols is the co-founder of Angel Squad, a community where you’ll learn how to angel invest and get a chance to invest as little as $1k into Hustle Fund's top performing early-stage startups

Naomi Osaka grew up playing tennis and never wore sunscreen. It was not until she started researching skin cancer statistics that she understood why that was a problem. Black Americans have a melanoma mortality rate nearly three times higher than white Americans, partly because darker skin tones are underrepresented in clinical studies and partly because the misconception that melanated skin doesn't need sun protection is widespread. That research led to a business.

KINLÒ and the Market Gap

Naomi Osaka investments in KINLÒ began as a personal mission. In 2021, she launched the brand as founding CEO through A-Frame Brands, a Los Angeles-based platform that develops talent-led personal care brands for underserved communities. KINLÒ's product line opened with a mineral-based sunscreen formulated specifically to eliminate the white cast typically left on darker skin, alongside a hydrating eye cream, lip balm, and facial mist. The formulations were developed in partnership with dermatologist Dr. Naana Boakye.

The name is bilingual. "Kin" means gold in Japanese. "Lò" means gold in Haitian Creole. Both reflect Osaka's Japanese and Haitian heritage. The hashtag is #staygolden.

Investors in KINLÒ included Initialized Capital, Endeavor (Osaka's talent agency), and Billie Jean King. The first funding round was in the seven figures but undisclosed. In 2022, KINLÒ secured an exclusive retail partnership with Walmart, placing products in 2,500 stores across the country and online through Walmart.com. That distribution deal moved the brand from direct-to-consumer niche into mass retail reach.

Hana Kuma and the Media Company

In parallel with KINLÒ, Osaka co-founded Hana Kuma with her longtime agent Stuart Duguid. The production company focuses on telling diverse and culturally resonant stories across sports, entertainment, and documentary formats. The name means "flower bear" in Japanese. Hana Kuma has produced projects across streaming and short-form, with a specific focus on amplifying perspectives that mainstream entertainment has historically overlooked.

Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund has spoken about the way founder background shapes the companies they build: the most authentic brands solve problems the founder has personally experienced. 

Osaka's KINLÒ and Hana Kuma both start from that same place, which makes them defensible against incumbents who could technically enter the same market but cannot replicate the founder's credibility in it. Angel Squad members evaluating mission-driven consumer startups apply that same test. You can explore how the Angel Squad community thinks about these deals at hustlefund.vc/squad.

Evolve and the Talent Agency

In 2022, Osaka and Duguid co-founded Evolve, a sports talent agency focused on athlete representation with particular attention to female athletes. The agency provides branding, marketing, and financial management services tailored to athletes navigating the increasingly complex intersection of sports, media, and business. Evolve represents a structural observation: the major agencies have conflicts of interest when representing athletes as both talent clients and endorsement revenue sources. A founder-operated agency built by a high-profile athlete can offer different alignment.

Eric Bahn of Hustle Fund has noted that some of the most durable startup ideas come from founders who experienced the problem professionally before they solved it. Osaka spent years navigating the talent agency world as a top-ranked global athlete before building her own agency. That experience is a different kind of domain expertise than most beauty or media founders bring.

The Off-Court Financial Picture

Osaka'''s three ventures illustrate a model Angel Squad members see increasingly in athlete investing: build a brand platform (tennis career + advocacy), identify an authentic market gap (KINLÒ), create media infrastructure around it (Hana Kuma), and professionalize the whole operation through a dedicated management structure (Evolve). Each layer reinforces the others. That coherence is what separates durable athlete business empires from celebrity licensing deals that fade when the endorser loses cultural relevance. Explore these frameworks inside Angel Squad at hustlefund.vc/squad.

Osaka has earned over $23 million in career prize money, making her one of the highest-earning female tennis players in history. But endorsements have been the larger income driver, with partnerships including Nike, Louis Vuitton, Mastercard, Yonex, and TAG Heuer. She was at one point the highest-paid female athlete in the world based on combined on-court and off-court earnings.

She took a medical leave to address mental health in 2021, publicly disclosing struggles with depression and anxiety. That transparency contributed to a broader conversation about athlete mental health and added authenticity to her brand positioning around wellness and self-care. Her net worth is estimated around $45 to $60 million as of 2025.

As a member of Angel Squad, you learn from investors and founders who think carefully about the relationship between authentic personal story and durable brand equity. Osaka's portfolio is a clear case study in that dynamic. Explore Angel Squad at hustlefund.vc/squad.‍