From the Baseline to the Boardroom, Serena Williams Plans for a Big Future
From the Baseline to the Boardroom, Serena Williams Plans for a Big Future
Serena Williams' recent Vogue essay in which she announced that she is “evolving away from tennis,” was clearly carefully worded. The word ‘retirement’ was not mentioned. With dozens of business ventures under her wing, arguably the world’s most successful female athlete plans to attack the boardroom with the same ferocity as she did the tennis court.
At 41, her net worth is immense. According to Forbes, she’s currently estimated to be worth $260 million. She has won $94.6 million in career prize money from tennis and accrued a mighty $340 million in endorsements from the likes of Nike, Wilson, Gatorade, Delta Air Lines, Aston Martin, Pepsi, Beats by Dre, JP Morgan Chase, Audemars Piguet, Bumble, Upper Deck, IBM, and Intel.
In 2021 her income was $45.3 million. She is involved as either a board member, investor, or both in numerous ventures including SurveyMonkey parent, Momentive, NFT company Bitski, Sorare, Poshmark NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League) expansion club Angel City, Miami Dolphins (she has owned a 0.5% stake since 2009). Williams has her own clothing line, S by Serena, and a self-named jewelry line. She was also an executive producer on the Oscar-winning biopic, King Richard. In April 2021, Williams signed a first-look TV deal with Amazon Studios that includes a docuseries about her.
However, it’s doubtful that any of these side hustles have hastened her evolution away from tennis. In the Vogue essay, the 23-time Grand Slam champion gave details on her next incarnation — as a venture capitalist. Her firm, Serena Ventures, which she heads with her business partner, Alison Rapaport Stillman, announced in March that it had raised an inaugural fund of $111 million from banks, high net worth individuals, and family members. The fund's limited partners include Norwest Ventures Partners, Capital G (Alphabet’s growth fund), and LionTree. The six-person company has already invested in a few successful startups including SendWave, MasterClass, Noom, Tonal and Impossible Foods which are valued at over $1 billion. However, her fund has a clear objective — to invest “in founders with diverse points of view,” as she told the NY Times’ DealBook newsletter.
“I’ve always been fascinated with technology, and I’ve always loved how it really shapes our lives,” Williams an investor of nine years told the paper of record. “When I met my husband, that was our first conversation. That’s how we met. I was talking about investments.” Williams’s husband is the Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
Circulating in the rarified circles that she does has given Williams an inside perspective on investment opportunities and voids to be filled. Attending a talk between Caryn Seidman-Becker, the chief executive of the security company Clear, and Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase, Williams discovered that less than 2% of venture money went to women.
“I literally couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that 98 percent of all of this money we’re talking about — billions of dollars — goes to one type of individual,” Williams told the NY Times.
She wrote in her Vogue essay: “Someone who looks like me needs to start writing the big checks. Sometimes like attracts like. Men are writing those big checks to one another, and in order for us to change that, more people who look like me need to be in that position, giving money back to themselves.”
Serena Ventures’ website states that 53% of the company’s current portfolio of companies is female-owned, while 76% of the firm’s investments have been founded by people from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Of that percentage, 47% have black founders, and 12% have Latino founders.
Serena Ventures has been busy over the last few months and currently invests in 56 companies. Recent investments include:
$2.1 million seed round in Calico — an e-commerce enablement company founded by Kathleen Chan.
A $7 million Series A round was raised by Chatdesk, a customer support messaging platform founded by black entrepreneurs Andrew Olaleye and Aneto Okonkwo. No word on SV's investment.
An investment (unknown amount) in Esusu, a fintech startup in the property management space and one of the first black-owned tech unicorns
The interviewing company Karat, where she plans to scale Brilliant Black Minds, a program that improves access and inclusion in the technology industry, with the goal of adding more than 100,000 new Black engineers to the tech industry in the next decade.
Led a $5 million funding round for Selena Gomez's mental health start-up, Wondermind, now valued at $100 million.
Hairtelligence (an undisclosed amount), a computer vision-powered solution for customizing hair products for African American women.
Zigazoo, a social network for children
Pachama, a San Francisco-based clean energy company, with initiatives in Brazil
It’s not a surprise that Williams invests in many of the businesses she understands or has a passion for — athletics, wellness, and Black-owned tech. Almost 80% of Serena Ventures' portfolio is female- and minority-founded companies, “because that’s who we are,” she wrote in Vogue.
Real Estate
Williams's real estate portfolio comprises luxury homes in Florida, California, and Paris, according to a recent article in Architectural Digest. The 14,500-square-foot Spanish Mediterranean–style home that Serena purchased in 2017 for $6.6 million has been completely renovated in collaboration with older sister Venus.
In the same year, she and her husband purchased a Beverly Hills home together for $6.7 million. In 2020 she purchased a waterfront estate in Jupiter, South Florida for $8 million. Serena Williams has owned a home in Paris for many years which she showed on Snapchat back in 2016.
Cars
Williams has proved she can go toe to toe with any female tennis player throughout her career. Her car collection proves that she can battle the men when it comes to the whips. According to a recent article in 21motoring.com, Williams who is a brand ambassador for the Lincoln Navigator, unsurprisingly also owns the most up-to-date version. In total, she owns the following:
The total price of her rides comes to well over $1 million, which is barely a blip on the financial radar of this sports icon-turned business mogul.
Conclusion
Serena Williams brings a huge amount of life experience to the business world. At 41 she has experienced it all, from the gritty streets of Compton to the heights of international sporting fame and well-managed financial growth. It’s been a hard-fought journey, achieved through grit, talent, and determination. Along the way, Williams has gained an invaluable insight into, people, life, and success. If there’s anyone who is best positioned to gauge the potential of business ideas, especially those of minorities, Williams is it. Expect massive things from Serena Ventures when she leaves the court for good in a few weeks.