In the past, athletes didn’t have much access to opportunities or knowledge about investing and building wealth.
As a result, there was a widespread narrative around them being “dumb jocks” and making poor financial decisions.
Times have changed a lot in the past 10 years or so.
What feels like overnight, athletes have become synonymous with media, technology, and business.
Athletes from all sports are leveraging their brands for endorsements, sponsorships, and partnerships to capitalize on generational wealth-building opportunities.
And the top athletes have taken it a step further.
Several of them have parlayed their brands into multi-million dollar investment firms in their second careers as well.
Here are 10 former athletes who built multi-million dollar investment firms in life after sports:
1) Serena Williams (Serena Ventures)
The former global tennis star, who holds 23 Grand Slam tennis titles, started her venture capital firm with Alison Rapaport Stillman in 2017.
The firm seeks to invest in diverse founders around e-commerce, fintech, health, sports & wellness, web3, ed-tech, enterprise, social, and climate technology sectors and recently raised an inaugural fund of $111 million.
Investments include: Lolli, Teal Health, Wondermind
2) Joe Montana (Liquid 2 Ventures)
Former NFL QB and Hall of Famer Joe Montana started Liquid 2 Ventures, along with Michael Ma, and Mike Miller in 2015.
The venture capital firm, which provides technology startups with seed-stage investments, recently raised its third fund at $80 million.
Their first two core funds, Liquid 2 Ventures, L.P. (vintage 2016, “Fund I”) and Liquid 2 Ventures Fund II (Vintage 2018, “Fund II”), have both over 3x and include 25 companies valued at over $1B.
Investments include: Rippling, GitLab, Rappi
3) Lance Armstrong (Next Ventures)
The famed cyclist Lance Armstrong co-founded Next Ventures with Lionel Conacher in 2019.
The venture capital firm is designed to maximize growth opportunities in the exploding sports, fitness, nutrition, and wellness markets.
Investments include: ŌURA, Momentous, Outside
4) Isaiah Kacyvenski (Will Ventures)
Isaiah Kacyvenski is a former NFL player turned VC investor.
Alongside former NFL player Ben Gardner and Brian Reilly, they launched Will Ventures in 2019 with a focus on early-stage investments for consumer, health, and media startups. In 2022, they tripled their original fund as they raised a $150 million second fund.
Investments include: Future, Breathwrk Inc., Candy Digital
5) Ryan Nece (Next Play Capital)
Ryan Nece is a former NFL linebacker and the son of Pro Football Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott.
For the past eight years or so, he’s been building out his firm Next Play Capital which is a venture capital investment platform structured to provide specialized investors access to top venture capital funds and companies.
In 2022, they raised over $200 million for their third fund.
Investments include: Nightfall AI, Affinity.co, Flexport
6) Steve Nash (Bullish)
Widely recognized as one of the best NBA point guards of all time, Steve Nash launched Bullish in 2020 along with Michael Duda.
As a hybrid venture capital fund and marketing agency, they focus on early-stage consumer investments aimed at cultural trends, and technological momentum.
Investments include: Casper, Peloton Interactive, Harry’s, Inc.
7) Omri Casspi (Sheva VC)
Omri Casspi is the first Israeli to play in the NBA and the former captain of Israel’s national basketball team.
In 2022, he announced a new VC fund called Sheva, a new VC fund to invest in early-stage startups in Israel. The fund was co-founded with David Citron and is currently working to deploy its $50 million fund.
Investments include: Flare, LibLab, Upwind Security
8) Malcolm Jenkins (Broad Street Ventures)
While now he might be focused more on real estate, former NFL Safety Malcolm Jenkins, started Broad Street Ventures with a $10 million fund.
The venture firm focused on late and growth-stage investments in consumer products and tech companies with a focus on minority founders.
Investments include: NOBULL, Automattic, Dapper Labs
9) Kobe Bryant (Bryant Stibel)
The late-great Kobe Bryant was a pioneer off the court as much as he was on it.
In 2016, along with Jeff Stribel, he launched a $100 million venture capital fund that focuses on companies at the convergence of technology, media, and data.
His best bet was BodyArmour which returned $400 million after a $6 million investment.
Investments include: LegalZoom, BODYARMOR Sports Nutrition, Epic Games
10) Steve Young (HGGC)
Steve Young is one of the top athletes turned VCs.
He formed HGGC in 2007 alongside several others and to date they have completed $50 billion worth of deals.
Recently, they raised their fourth fund in June 2022 at $2.54 billion. The firm focuses on middle-market companies in four sectors: business and tech-enabled services, consumer, financial services, and software and technology.
Investments include: Dentive, AutoAlert, Fullscript
Bonus: Andre Iguodala (Mosiac)
Recently retired 4× NBA champ Andre Iguodala raised a $200 million fund upon his exit from the NBA a few months ago.
Mosiac is a rebrand from his previous investment arm MASTRY Ventures which he co-founded with his long-term business manager Rudy Cline-Thomas.
The fund leads early-stage investments and participates in select growth-access deals in sectors where they have an unfair advantage.
Investments include: Zoom, NerdWallet, Cloudflare
