Not having a chance to invest in major players in tech ultimately catapulted Serena Williams into the investment ring.
“Tennis is all sponsor based, and I would see like some of these sponsors come up, but I’m like, ‘Well I have some little cash, like how did I not invest in Facebook? How can I invest in Airbnb or how did I miss Google? Or like, you know, all these companies,’” Williams said on “The Deal.” “And I started to ask these questions like, ‘Why am I out here breaking my neck and sweating when I could have invested in these companies and I could still be doing the same thing, but it wouldn’t have to be such dire needs, ‘I’ve gotta win this U.S. Open this year. I’ve gotta pay these bills.’ So, I literally would be on the court looking at these sponsors thinking, ‘how did I miss this?’”
“I remember even just sitting in Pinterest at the time one day and just learning from the founder there and just being a sponge and just trying to understand the business, understand investing, understand all this stuff a little bit more. And that’s kind of how it all started,” she said.
“I didn’t realize that it was called early stage. I just liked companies that were starting, and then I liked growing them,” she explained.
Williams says since her start in investing, she has continued to land more deals and has added 16 unicorns to her personal portfolio over time. This positioned her to be in better standing to launch a fund.
“I worked on doing more deals, ended up getting about 16 unicorns in my portfolio,” Williams said. “So that way I would have a good track record, ’cause I knew it wouldn’t be probably easy for us to raise a fund first go-around.”
