“All this money we gettin’ could be gone in a minute / If we don’t invest it / We long-term affected.”
Those lyrics are from Nas’ song “Bonjour,” off his new album “Nasir,” and if there’s any rapper who’s qualified to speak about investing it’s him.
According to CNBC, Amazon just acquired the online pharmacy company PillPack for $1 billion, which Nas invested in four years ago through his company Queensbridge Venture Partners.
PillPack allows customers to order their prescriptions online, then have it sorted and delivered to their home. The deal between Amazon and PillPack could be completed as early as this fall.
In the pharmacy’s start-up round, it raised $8.8 million and eventually secured $118 million in private capital investments. Amazon came on afterwards.
PillPack was started by TJ Parker and Elliot Cohen, who each made $100 million from the deal. At this time, it’s not clear how much Nas invested, but it’s rumored that his payout is quite sizable.
As a matter of fact, this is the second time this year that Nas has benefited from an Amazon acquisition.
In March, the company purchased Ring, a security, doorbell device that allows you to see who’s at your front door. You can also speak and see that person on your phone when they ring, whether you’re home or not.
Reportedly, Nas made a whopping $40 million in that deal. On top of that, he was an early investor in the companies Lyft, SeatGeek and the website Genius.
In a past interview, Nas said he’d always thought about investing, it was just a matter of time and opportunity.
“You invest your time, you can invest money and it was just a matter of time before it all fell into place for me,” he said. That’s one of the things that I thought a lot about as a young kid — the guys behind the scenes who make things happen, help build people up, make dreams come true.”
