Serena Williams took to social media to let fans know what occupies her time after giving up tennis.
Williams shared a TikTok video where she discussed her investment business which she started long before her ‘transition away from tennis’.
Quite a few of her investments have hit the headlines like her stake in the Miami Dolphins.
Williams formed an investment group with Natalie Portman, Eva Longoria, Mia Hamm, and Becky G in July 2022 to support the National Women’s Soccer League (NSWL). The group of women, together with Williams’ daughter Olympia, co-own Angel City FC, which became the NSWL’s 11th franchised side headquartered in Los Angeles.
She is proudest of helping small businesses get off the ground and building diversity in various spaces.
“Hey everyone, I thought it’d be really fun to kinda talk about things that I do now that I don’t play professional tennis anymore. Kinda evolved from that. One thing that I have been doing, that I’m doing for years and years is investments,” Serena Williams said in her recent TikTok video.
“So I invest in a lot of companies, early companies, so think early stage, where companies have just started. And, I’ve always done this, I’ve actually been investing for over 14 years.”
Williams has found herself getting more and more engaged with investments and is proud of her successes including investing in startup that would become a unicorns.
She said that investment was her plan B but it has proven more profutable than her tennis career.
“Just been an entrepreneur, while I was playing tennis, it’s super important for me to make a plan B while I was doing my plan A. Sounds weird, like a plan B. But it was fun, it was really important for me to do that, she added. “So, in my personal portfolio, I have invested in over 85 companies, maybe? Also, 14 are unicorn and a few decacorns.”
Serena Ventures was created in 2014 in Washington, D.C. by Williams and Alison Rapaport Stilman with the goal of assisting businesses “whose perspectives and innovations level the playing field for women and people of colour.”
However, she only announced the company in a post to Instagram in April 2019. It is now headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and is actively seeking early-stage, series A, B, C, and seed investments.
Serena Ventures manages a wide portfolio of 64 firms in consumer products and services, information technology, TMT, healthcare, e-commerce, and wellness.
According to the firm’s website, 53% of these 64 firms are created by women, and 76% by entrepreneurs from historically underrepresented backgrounds.
