Serena Williams, Tennis-Star-Slash-Tech-Entrepreneur
Photo illustration: 731: photo: Pierre Suu/GC Images/Getty Images
When Serena Williams announced her retirement from professional tennis in August, fans raced to buy tickets for the US Open so they could have one last chance to see her play. She lost in the third round, likely ending a 27-year career in which she won 23 Grand Slams and took her place as one of the greatest athletes ever.
Williams is searching for similar success off the court. She told Bloomberg News in an interview prior to her announcement that she wants to run a billion-dollar fund someday. Started in 2014, her company is focused on diversity; 75% of the businesses it backs, including weight-loss app Noom, are founded by people from underrepresented communities. In addition to high-profile startups (it also invests in the online education platform MasterClass), Serena Ventures has backed crypto companies including Nestcoin Holding Ltd., a Nigerian developer of crypto-investing products for frontier markets, and Lolli, an app that gives users shopping rewards in Bitcoin. Williams even spoke at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, announcing a marketing partnership with financial-services platform Cash App. “I like to be good at what I do,” she told Bloomberg.