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

Stephen Curry is the greatest shooter in NBA history by most measures, holding the all-time three-point record and having fundamentally changed how the game is played. Off the court, he has been systematically building a business infrastructure that looks less like a celebrity endorsement portfolio and more like a genuine operating company. Stephen Curry investments flow through two primary vehicles: Thirty Ink, his brand conglomerate, and Penny Jar Capital, the early-stage VC firm he co-founded. The 2024 numbers are notable. Thirty Ink generated $173.5 million in revenue, with every business unit turning a profit.

Thirty Ink and the Brand Architecture

Thirty Ink is the holding company for Curry's business empire. The largest revenue driver is the Curry Brand through Under Armour, a partnership that began in 2013. In 2020, Under Armour formalized the relationship by launching The Curry Brand as a standalone unit within the company, with Curry serving as president. In 2023, Under Armour awarded him 8.8 million common shares valued at approximately $75 million, alongside incentives tied to the brand's performance. The Curry Brand's contribution to Thirty Ink's $173.5 million in 2024 revenue reflects how thoroughly Curry has monetized his athletic identity into an equity position rather than a flat endorsement fee.

Beyond Under Armour, Thirty Ink encompasses Unanimous Media, Curry's film and television production company, which focuses on stories rooted in faith, family, and sports. The company has produced content for ESPN, NBC, and other major platforms. Gentleman's Cut, Curry's bourbon brand, rounds out the portfolio alongside Underrated Golf and Basketball, a platform he built specifically to provide opportunities for players and courses in underserved communities.

The 2024 performance matters because every unit was profitable. That's not common in celebrity brand portfolios, where most ventures generate brand value rather than cash returns. Curry has structured Thirty Ink to actually make money, which is the harder version of what most athletes attempt.

Penny Jar Capital and the Tech Layer

Penny Jar Capital is the early-stage venture firm Curry co-founded in 2021, operating as Curry's partner in the VC world rather than as a traditional celebrity investor side project. The firm manages $180 million across two funds and has made 21 investments according to CB Insights, with its most recent being Upwind, a cloud security company, in January 2026. Previous portfolio companies include Syndio, a workplace equity analytics platform, and Plezi, which received a Curry angel investment in July 2024. The firm had two portfolio exits as of early 2026, including Praxis Labs in July 2025.

Penny Jar operates as a genuine institutional investor, not a celebrity branding exercise. The team includes professional investors alongside Curry as an anchor LP and strategic advisor. The firm focuses on seed and Series A companies across technology, with an emphasis on enterprise software, health tech, and consumer platforms.

 Elizabeth Yin, Hustle Fund GP, has talked about how the most effective athlete investors are the ones who hire professional investment teams and provide strategic value rather than attempting to do deep investment diligence themselves. Penny Jar is built around exactly that model.

The Process Mindset

Curry's approach to business consistently mirrors his approach to basketball: show up every day, do the work that doesn't feel productive in the short term, and trust that the process compounds. In multiple public appearances and through Penny Jar's LinkedIn presence, he has articulated the same principle: a leader's job is to make others better, to communicate in the language each person understands, and to trust that daily repetition in the fundamentals creates performance when it counts.

Eric Bahn, Hustle Fund GP, has noted that the best early-stage investors are the ones who treat the investment process as a craft to be practiced rather than a talent to be deployed. Curry's public commentary on leadership and process is consistent with that orientation. He's not trying to find shortcuts to returns. He's building infrastructure that compounds.

Shiyan Koh, Hustle Fund managing partner, has talked about how patient, process-oriented investors consistently outperform those who chase momentum. Curry's SC30 Inc., which manages his brand partnerships and investment interests, has been operating since his early NBA years, giving him a longer runway for developing investment judgment than most athletes attempt.

Angel Squad and the Daily Improvement Standard

Stephen Curry investments are a reminder that the best returns in early-stage investing come from the same place the best athletic performances come from: years of unsexy, daily work that builds genuine expertise before anyone's paying attention. Angel Squad is built for investors who want to do that work seriously. 

With 2,500 members across 50 countries, the community provides the deal flow, education, and peer network that makes consistent improvement possible. Members invest alongside Hustle Fund in real early-stage companies and develop judgment through actually doing deals, not just reading about them.

 Penny Jar's first investment was in Syndio, a workplace equity company, which reflects the kind of mission-aligned, thesis-driven evaluation that Angel Squad trains members to do. Build your own process at hustlefund.vc/squad.

The Takeaway

Stephen Curry built a $173.5 million revenue business and a $180 million venture fund by applying the same discipline to business that made him the greatest shooter in NBA history: daily effort, process over outcome, and patience with the compound effects of showing up. Every business in Thirty Ink is profitable.

Every Penny Jar investment reflects a real thesis. That's not luck. It's infrastructure built over years before the public scoreboard showed anything interesting.