Serena Williams’ venture capital firm among notable new investors in Unrivaled basketball league

Serena Williams announced in 2022 that she was stepping away from tennis to focus on Serena Ventures full-time. 

Serena Williams launched Serena Ventures in 2014 with a simple mission: to address the severe lack of funding for women’s businesses and brands. The new Unrivaled basketball league seems to be the latest to meet that criteria.

On Monday, September 8, the brand-new off-season women’s 3-on-3 basketball league announced that Williams, through Serena Ventures, is among the notable new investors. 

The league kicked off its inaugural season in January in Miami as another off-season opportunity for WNBA players to play domestically while supplementing their income. League officials have said the elements that set their league apart include playing style and a competitive salary, ESPN reported. Players can earn more than the average WNBA salary. After wrapping a successful inaugural season in March, Unrivaled is now valued at $340 million. 

Other investors in Round B funding include Atlanta Hawks star guard Trae Young, Franz and Moritz Wagner of the Orlando Magic, University of Maryland president Darryll J. Pines, and his wife Sylvia. 

“We’re continuing to align with partners who elevate our league and accelerate our strategic growth. With Bessemer Venture Partners leading this round, Unrivaled is in an unprecedented position for a new sports league,” Unrivaled President Alex Bazzell expressed in a statement.

Williams joining the fold through Serena Ventures could bode well for the league, founded two years ago, as Serena Ventures has bolstered the funding of over 60 companies in just a little over ten years. 

In April 2022, the tennis champion, wife, and mom of two announced in an essay for Vogue that she was stepping back from the sport to focus full-time on growing her family and working on her venture capital fund. At the time, the fund had raised over $111 million. She described how she developed a passion for investing after learning that less than 2% of venture capital funding went to women-owned businesses. 

“I kind of understood then and there that someone who looks like me needs to start writing the big checks,” she wrote. “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.”