Cyrus Langhorne
Music mogul Nas is showing off the power of a dollar after reportedly investing into a concert ticket search engine called SeatGeek, which has raised nearly $40 million.
Details of Nasty Nas’ involvement and other high-profile investors like Super Bowl-winning quarterback Peyton Manning has surfaced this week.
Concert ticket search engine SeatGeek announced on Thursday that it has raised $35 million in a series B round of funding led by Accel Partners. Other investors in the round include rapper Nas, NFL quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning and Causeway Media Partners, a sports investment fund led by Boston Celtics CEO Wyc Grousbeck. The company plans to use the money to help hire new talent and expand on its products and marketing, with a particular focus on mobile. (Billboard)
A few months ago, the rap veteran teamed up with a technology company.
Tech has a serious diversity problem — so General Assembly (GA), the New York City private vocational school for programming and engineering, is now opening an “Opportunity Fund” to give scholarships to women, veterans, African-Americans and Latinos. The first contributors to the fund are Google, Microsoft, Hirepurpose and Nas. Yes, rapper and recording artist Nas, the man who brought us “Illmatic.” The partnership with Nas began when he met GA cofounder Matt Brimer at SXSW, but Nas isn’t the only media figure to approach GA about these kinds of programs. (Beta Beat)
Back in October 2013, the hip-hop heavyweight invested money into a San Francisco-based company called Proven which focused on helping people find jobs.
Quick, what rhymes with “start-up?” Celebrity music artists, including rappers, have been finding new ways to invest their money, and Nas, born Nasir Jones, is no exception. After a six-figure investment in the lifestyle publication “Mass Appeal,” the rapper has put money into a San Francisco company called Proven, which makes apps to help people apply to online job postings through their smartphones. Nas, who rose to fame with his smash 1994 album “Illmatic,” participated in the company’s $1-million seed funding round that was led by Andreessen Horowitz and closed this summer. (Los Angeles Times)
Last summer, Harvard University recognized Nasir Jones for his musical contributions.
Nas will be honored at the Hip-Hop Archive and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, to establish the Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship. The Fellowship will provide selected scholars and artists with an opportunity to show that “education is real power,” as it builds upon the achievements of those who demonstrate exceptional capacity for productive scholarship and exceptional creative ability in the arts, in connection with the genre. (The Grio)
