Steve Smith’s cricketing career has had plenty of highs and lows.
In 2018, the star batsman was banned for one year following the disastrous ball-tampering scandal in Cape Town. Since returning earlier this year, Smith has been trying to redeem himself, proving largely responsible for Australia’s victory against England in the first match of the Ashes series last week.
While that win may be large in the minds of Australian cricket fans at present, Smith actually may have laid the groundwork for his biggest victory way back in 2015 — and it was in business.
It’s been revealed that he handed over $100,000 for a 10% stake of the largely unknown Australian mattress start-up Koala in July 2015, according to the Australian Financial Review (AFR). Business Insider Australia has approached Koala for confirmation.
As part of the deal, Smith became the company’s brand ambassador. His sparkling cricket career (ball-tampering scandals aside) has no doubt helped shine a spotlight on it.
Four years on, Koala has managed to amass some 200,000 customers and in July was valued at around $150 million. That success makes Smith’s stake now worth an astounding $12.18 million, pushing his net worth up to $31 million, as estimated by the AFR.
That’s up from $27 million in 2018, despite the ball-tampering scandal costing Smith his captaincy, as well as an estimated $5 million in earnings last year.
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Amazingly the AFR now believes that Smith has earnt more from his early Koala investment than from cricket altogether.
That fact alone has us stumped.
This article first appeared on Business Insider Australia, Australia’s most popular business news website. Read the original article. Follow Business Insider on Facebook or Twitter.