Serena Williams Shares Her VC Philosophy and Why She Backs Startups Solving for the 98%

23-time singles Grand Slam champion Serena Williams is on the lookout for tech founders with a compelling story to inform. The tennis icon grew to become keen on expertise 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 Reside 2025 convention, Williams spoke candidly about her strategy to investing. A concentrate on private connectionThough Serena Ventures seeks out early indicators of progress and market match, these aren’t the primary components it considers. “One factor that we actually search for is a real story. After we discuss to founders and so they say, ‘Oh, this can be a nice white house,’ we love that, however normally, we’ve discovered that founders don’t do as properly except they’d some type 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 among the most important issues that we take 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 thought not as a result of it was a white house” however as a result of he was personally compelled by fixing a particular drawback.  Dedication to the 98percentBeyond a private narrative that signifies a founder’s potential, Williams seems for startups that goal to deal with widespread wants.“A variety of VC focuses on 2% to three% to 4% of the inhabitants. We actually concentrate on 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 out there since lease has traditionally not counted towards credit score scores. “You understand how 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 drawback is dealing with [a huge percent] of the inhabitants. And so we strive to have a look at firms that almost all VC folks [would pass up because they] wish to concentrate on that smaller quantity. These are trillion-dollar industries that we’re that have an effect on many of the inhabitants.”Backing girls and folks of colorSince its launch in 2017, Serena Ventures has prioritized girls founders and people from underrepresented backgrounds, in addition to upstarts growing progressive options that search to enhance fairness for girls and folks of colour.As of final 12 months, greater than half of the businesses in Serena Ventures’ portfolio are women-founded. The portfolio additionally contains virtually 50% Black founders and over 10% Latino founders. As a Black girl enterprise capitalist, Williams is uniquely positioned to bolster companies run by folks from underrepresented teams, she stated, as a result of “you must 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 alter who’s writing the checks, you then get totally different founders. When it’s the identical folks writing the checks, they’ll get the identical traders, and it’s a vicious cycle, proper? “Now we 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 another way.”