Lance Armstrong says his investment in Uber ‘saved our family’

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Lance Armstrong during an interview with Oprah Winfrey regarding the controversy surrounding his cycling career January 14, 2013 in Austin, Texas.

After Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace cost him millions of dollars in lost endorsements and lawsuit settlements, one thing kept him on his feet: his investment in Uber.

“It’s saved our family,” Armstrong told CNBC’s Andrew Sorkin in an interview aired on Thursday. In 2009, the former pro cyclist invested $100,000 in Chris Sacca’s nascent venture capital firm, Lowercase Capital. Armstrong said the bulk of the money went to Uber, which at the time was valued at just $3.7 million. Today, as the company prepares for its IPO, banks have valued Uber at as much as $120 billion.

At the time Armstrong invested in Sacca’s firm, he said, “I didn’t even know that he did Uber. I thought he was buying up a bunch of Twitter shares from employees or former employees and the biggest investment in [the] Lowercase fund one was Uber.”

Armstrong declined to say how much his investment has turned into, but said the number is “too good to be true.” In addition to losing lucrative endorsements, Armstrong has had to pay millions in settlements after it became clear the athlete was doping to improve his performance. In 2013, he confessed to the doping in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.

Armstrong dodged the most costly of lawsuits with a $5 million settlement announced in April. The federal government could have sought up to $100 million in damages had the suit gone to trial. He had previously paid over $20 million in damages and settlements across a series of lawsuits, according to the Guardian.

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