At Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Stephen Curry surely wanted a worldwide audience to see the hat he was wearing while on his walk into Oracle Arena and surrounded by cameras.
The Warriors would lose to the Raptors, and in fact it was a Toronto technology startup, SnapTravel, that had its logo and hat occupy the prominent place on Curry’s head at the postgame press conference. Six months earlier, the company that seeks to disrupt the travel industry with an artificial intelligence-based, hotel-booking assistant had announced an investment from Curry.
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Randy Osei, an experienced NBA player manager who founded his own Toronto-based creative branding and marketing agency, drew inspiration from Curry’s investment. He wanted to organize an event where NBA players and tech companies could get connected.
Curry, his then-Warriors teammates Kevin Durant and Andre Iguodala, along with the Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown are among the NBA players who have hosted and participated in NBA player-focused tech conferences in San Francisco. Iguodala, whose investment portfolio includes startups Casper, NerdWallet and Zoom, has led such events in each of the past four years and told the audience at the Players Technology Summit in June, “We have a group of athletes who want to come in and become more knowledgeable in this space. Tech is everywhere now. It’s disrupting everything, just at the forefront of leading many different sectors and the players realize that.”
Now thanks to Osei, it’s Canada’s turn as the Athlete Technology Summit will take place this week in Toronto with four NBA players — Kenneth Faried, Langston Galloway, Davon Reed and newly-signed Raptors forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson — scheduled to speak on Friday in front of invited guests including venture capitalists, startup founders, agents, influencers and other pro athletes.
“I know KD and Steph have been doing some stuff like this in Silicon Valley, and now I just want to highlight the Canadian companies, you know?” said Osei, the CEO of Rozaay Management. “As a country, we’re so used to coming in second or throwing a lob to another country or letting them slam dunk it. I think it’s time that we highlight what we have here going on in Canada and get athletes involved.
“I don’t think Toronto is far off from (how Durant viewed Golden State as a destination to win championships and take care of his investments) in how players can look at Toronto like that. We just won a title, and there’s tons of opportunities for entrepreneurial athletes that want to build their career off the court.”
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Osei would know. He has worked with Canadian NBA players such as Andrew Wiggins, Jamal Murray, Dillon Brooks and Khem Birch — also Danny Green while he played for the Raptors — setting up basketball camps, brand ambassadorships and marketing campaigns. When Osei heard about Curry’s investment, he wondered if Canadian players had heard of SnapTravel. According to SnapTravel’s CEO, the company actually had an introductory discussion with Curry at a Warriors playoff game back in 2016.
The Athlete Technology Summit will bring athletes and startups together in the fast-growing tech hub that is Toronto (and happens to be held right down the street from SnapTravel’s office).
“I’ve just been trying to tell the story of Canadian startups and bringing athletes to the forefront to connect with them, build with them, hopefully invest in them to so they can continue to grow and scale,” Osei said.
Referring to the LeBron James docuseries, Osei added, “I know the whole ‘More Than An Athlete’ run is still going, right? I think a lot of athletes are now not just basketball players. They’re businessmen.”
To put together panels for the event, Osei enlisted players he has previously connected brands with such as Faried, a gamer who has invested in a private messaging and gaming app. Reed was introduced to Osei by Trufan, a Vancouver-based startup that features a Software-as-a-Service platform and brought on investors including the Indiana Pacers guard.
(Courtesy of Randy Osei)
Osei, 29, is a former college basketball player and now an entrepreneur himself. He started out as the player liaison for former first overall draft pick Anthony Bennett and formed Rozaay Management after having built relationships with players in the league. He co-founded a startup that’s a subsidiary of his agency, Atlas 365, which aims to cultivate industrial hemp for sustainable solutions and does consulting work. Osei has also partnered with True Leaf Pet, a British Columbia-based cannabis and hemp wellness brand for pets, and connected Green among other players with the company.
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Osei through a clothing brand client had a chance meeting with Al Harrington two years ago, and the former NBA player will speak at the Athlete Technology Summit as the CEO of Viola, which sells medicinal and recreational cannabis products out of Denver. Harrington for the first time will come to Toronto to talk business rather than face the Raptors.
“Just the opportunities here are endless,” Osei said. “You see the growth. You see the diversity. This year’s draft we had six Canadians … Our tech sector comes with talent as well.
“I think there’s a lot of stories to be told at this event from an investor lens, from a marketing lens, from an ambassador lens, from a business opportunity lens, from a networking lens. It depends on what you’re looking for that day, right?”
(Top photo: Jack Arent / NBAE via Getty Images)
