How Rapper Nas Built a Track Record in Tech Investing: From Ring's $40M Exit to Coinbase's Billion-Dollar Bet

Nasir Jones, known to millions as the legendary hip-hop artist Nas, has earned another kind of reputation among Silicon Valley insiders: a savvy venture capitalist with an uncanny knack for backing winners. His investment through QueensBridge Venture Partners demonstrates how early bets in transformative technologies can compound into generational wealth.

The trajectory becomes clear when you trace Nas’ portfolio journey. The crown jewel came in 2018, when Amazon acquired Ring (the smart doorbell company backed by QueensBridge) for approximately $40 million. That exit proved QueensBridge’s thesis about consumer-facing hardware disrupting traditional markets. But that was just the warm-up for an even larger opportunity that would materialize years later.

From Series B Believer to Crypto’s Unlikely Ambassador

QueensBridge’s real gamble came back in 2013, when the firm made an early investment in Coinbase during its Series B funding round, just as the then-obscure cryptocurrency exchange was raising $25 million. At that time, Coinbase carried a valuation of roughly $143 million—a far cry from what the market would eventually assign to it.

The Series B allocation ranged between $100,000 and $500,000, according to QueensBridge’s investment parameters for early-stage opportunities. Using the Series B pricing (approximately $1.00676 per share), that stake translated to somewhere between 99,329 and 496,642 shares. By the time Coinbase approached its public market debut in 2021, those shares had appreciated dramatically.

The IPO Windfall: From $143M Valuation to $100B+ Vision

When Coinbase’s NASDAQ listing approached in early 2021, the valuations told a stunning story. Trading on private secondary markets at $350 per share would have positioned QueensBridge’s stake between $34.76 million and $173.8 million. Investment analysts like those at DA Davidson projected even higher prices, targeting $440 per share—a scenario that could have pushed QueensBridge’s Coinbase holdings to between $43.7 million and $218.5 million.

This represented roughly a 100-fold return on an investment made when Bitcoin itself was still viewed as a fringe phenomenon. The success wasn’t accidental. According to sources close to the matter, Ben Horowitz—co-founder of venture powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz—introduced Nas to the Coinbase opportunity, recognizing that this relatively unknown cryptocurrency exchange would eventually define the industry’s infrastructure.

Silicon Valley’s New Money: When Tech Titans and Musicians Intersect

The Coinbase story illustrates how venture capital in Silicon Valley now flows through unexpected channels. QueensBridge, co-founded by Nas and Anthony Saleh, had already demonstrated its instincts by backing Robinhood (2013), followed by eventual stakes in Lyft and Dropbox. The firm’s playbook—$100,000 to $500,000 early-stage allocations—proved prescient across a decade of tech disruption.

Coinbase’s IPO didn’t just enrich artists-turned-investors like Nas. It signaled something broader about venture capital’s democratization. Alongside traditional institutions like Duke University’s endowment (which backed Coinbase at an even earlier stage) and VCs from the so-called “Menlo Park mafia,” the exchange attracted angels from unexpected quarters—including former Reuters CEO Tom Glocer and ex-Citigroup head Vikram Pandit.

The Broader Lesson: Timing and Conviction in Emerging Markets

What Nas’ portfolio documents is the fundamental venture capital thesis: early believers in transformative platforms—whether it’s a smart doorbell company or a cryptocurrency exchange—capture disproportionate upside. The Ring exit provided the proof of concept. The Coinbase appreciation validated the strategy.

QueensBridge raised its initial $10 million fund in 2012, marking Nas’ formal entry into the world of technology investing. Over the following decade, the firm’s investments in companies that disrupted established industries transformed the musician’s net worth in ways his Grammy awards never could. The potential $100 million windfall from Coinbase—roughly eight years after the Series B investment—represents the ultimate payoff for those who correctly identified where technology was heading.

Today, with Anthony Saleh now operating as a general partner at venture firm WndrCo, QueensBridge’s legacy stands as a masterclass in patient capital deployed when nobody else was paying attention.