23-time singles Grand Slam champion Serena Williams is searching for tech founders with a compelling story to inform.
The tennis icon grew to become concerned about know-how lengthy earlier than retiring from the game in 2022. In 2017, whereas nonetheless on the skilled match circuit, Williams teamed up with Alison Rapaport Stillman to discovered Serena Ventures, a enterprise capital agency investing in early stage tech firms.
The agency raised $111 million for its inaugural fund and has since constructed out the staff to incorporate six different members. Serena Ventures has backed firms like gaming upstart Bunch, education-focused social platform Fiveable, Black- and Latinx-focused digital healthcare firm Hued, and a smattering of fintech and web3 firms.
On the Zeta Dwell 2025 convention, Williams spoke candidly about her method to investing.
A deal with private connection
Although Serena Ventures seeks out early indicators of development and market match, these aren’t the primary components it considers.
“One factor that we actually search for is a real story. Once we discuss to founders and so they say, ‘Oh, this can be a nice white house,’ we love that, however often, we’ve discovered that founders don’t do as properly except they’d some form of private expertise” tying them to their mission, Williams stated. “Clearly, there must be a market for it, and a market match, however [a personal connection] is likely one of the foremost issues that we have a look at in founders.”
One founder within the Serena Ventures portfolio—whose firm she known as a “main unicorn”—advised her that his mom needed to promote her jewellery to fund his ambitions. He struggled financially to get began, and now, Williams stated, “he was tackling an concept not as a result of it was a white house” however as a result of he was personally compelled by fixing a particular downside.
Dedication to the 98%
Past a private narrative that signifies a founder’s potential, Williams seems to be for startups that purpose to deal with widespread wants.
“Plenty of VC focuses on 2% to three% to 4% of the inhabitants. We actually deal with that 98%,” she stated.
She pointed to fintech startup Esusu for example. The corporate experiences lease funds to main credit score bureaus, serving to tenants construct credit score—a profit hardly ever accessible since lease has traditionally not counted towards credit score scores.
“You know the way many individuals are affected by that, and how one can’t construct credit score?” Williams stated. “Your automotive invoice works for credit score, however your lease doesn’t. In order that downside is dealing with [a huge percent] of the inhabitants. And so we attempt to have a look at firms that almost all VC individuals [would pass up because they] wish to deal with that smaller quantity. These are trillion-dollar industries that we’re taking a look at that have an effect on a lot of the inhabitants.”
Backing girls and folks of coloration
Since its launch in 2017, Serena Ventures has prioritized girls founders and people from underrepresented backgrounds, in addition to upstarts growing revolutionary options that search to enhance fairness for girls and folks of coloration.
As of final yr, greater than half of the businesses in Serena Ventures’ portfolio are women-founded. The portfolio additionally consists of virtually 50% Black founders and over 10% Latino founders.
As a Black lady enterprise capitalist, Williams is uniquely positioned to bolster companies run by individuals from underrepresented teams, she stated, as a result of “you need to begin on the prime. Should you don’t change that, it doesn’t movement down in any respect.”
“It’s actually about who writes the checks,” she continued. “As soon as you modify who’s writing the checks, then you definitely get totally different founders. When it’s the identical individuals writing the checks, they’ll get the identical buyers, and it’s a vicious cycle, proper?
“We now have a number of girls on our staff. We discover extra underrepresented founders. We discover extra girls founders. That’s why our portfolio has a lot range—as a result of we see issues in a different way.”
