The Valtteri Bottas Investment Method
Invest in what you know
The rise of the athlete-investor represents one of the most interesting shifts in modern sports business. Where previous generations of drivers might have put their earnings into traditional investments or real estate, today’s Formula 1 stars are becoming strategic stakeholders in the industries they genuinely care about.
It goes beyond just having money to throw at projects; they seek alignment with passions and values, leveraging that passion to make smarter bets than even the most savvy traditional financial backers ever could.
As someone who believes following your passions is the key to happiness, I very much appreciate Valtteri Bottas’ business portfolio. It’s not a random spray of celebrity investments.
It’s a compelling map of Valtteri as a man, where he chooses to put money behind what he actually loves, the things that make up the fabric of his life.
On the Ice
In March 2021, Bottas bought 10% of his hometown hockey team, the Lahti Pelicans (commonly referred to as the Lahden Pelicans), becoming one of the team’s largest shareholders. There’s not much vanity behind that investment. I mean, have you ever heard of the Lahti Pelicans?
That’s a childhood dream come true: owning a piece of the team he’s rooted for his entire life. Finnish ice hockey culture runs deep, and Valtteri put his money where his heart is.
The Pelicans have been vocal about sustainability, long-term infrastructure, and community responsibility. Valtteri is an astute investor, and he is choosing to back an institution that reflects the same values we see in him as an athlete.
Coffee
The coffee story might be my favourite because it’s so unpolished. Valtteri is a well-documented coffee aficionado. During the pandemic, he’s back home in Lahti and discovers Kahiwa Coffee Roasters. He falls in love with their beans, and instead of becoming an ambassador, what does he do? He becomes a co-owner.
There’s not much glamour here either; he just cared enough about how good a coffee order was to message them and want to be part of what they were building… not long after, he owned 20%.
That jump — from consumer to investor — tells you everything about his style of investment. He didn’t buy into coffee because it’s a lifestyle category or one of the most legal, mass-consumed, and addictive substances in the world. He bought into this coffee because quality mattered to him. Because he noticed the difference. Because he cared enough to reach out.
Frankly, the best early-stage investments usually start with genuine conviction.
Gin
He and his partner, Tiffany Cromwell, launched OATH Gin out of a shared ritual.
“A love of gin & tonic that turned into collecting bottles while travelling.”
Again, it’s not some contrived “what category should I enter?” or “We should launch a spirits brand.” This one came out of years of collecting gin while travelling, of shared routines, of something that already existed in their life.
That nuance matters.
In today’s influencer-driven economy, consumers can smell inauthenticity instantly. Everybody wants to have a lifestyle brand or a liquor brand. When founders actually live the product, the story tells itself.
Bottas doesn’t try to oversell it. He lets the product speak. Which is very on brand.
Investing that makes sense (and it’s smarter than it looks)
When athletes invest in things they actually use, follow, obsess over, and talk about when the cameras are off, they gain something that most financial backers never will: instinctive understanding.
They notice small shifts early and, most importantly, understand community, not just TAM, SOM, ROI, or CAC. They add value without forcing relevance, because their presence in the category already makes sense.
The throughline for Bottas’ portfolio is easy for anyone to identify with, and it’s very refreshing to see an F1 driver invest like a human, not like a pitch deck.
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Fantastic take on the hidden edge athletes have as investors. The coffee shop story really shows how conviction beats spreadsheets when evaluating early stage bets. I've actualy seen this in tech where founders who deeply use their own product tend to iterate faster than those chasing TAM projections.