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

23-time singles Grand Slam champion Serena Williams is seeing for tech founders with a compelling story to inform.

The tennis icon became interested in technology long before retiring from the sport in 2022. In 2017, while still on the professional tournament circuit, Williams teamed up with Alison Rapaport Stillman to found Serena Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in early stage tech companies.

The firm raised $111 million for its inaugural fund and has since built out the team to include six other members. Serena Ventures has backed companies like gaming upstart Bunch, education-focutilized social platform Fiveable, Black- and Latinx-focutilized digital healthcare company Hued, and a smattering of fintech and web3 companies.

At the Zeta Live 2025 conference, Williams spoke candidly about her approach to investing.

A focus on personal connection

Though Serena Ventures seeks out early signs of growth and market fit, these aren’t the first factors it considers.

“One thing that we really see for is a true story. When we talk to founders and they state, ‘Oh, this is a great white space,’ we love that, but usually, we’ve found that founders don’t do as well unless they had some sort of personal experience” tying them to their mission, Williams stated. “Obviously, there has to be a marketplace for it, and a market fit, but [a personal connection] is one of the main things that we see at in founders.”

One founder in the Serena Ventures portfolio—whose company she referred to as a “major unicorn”—notified her that his mother had to sell her jewelry to fund his ambitions. He struggled financially to obtain started, and now, Williams stated, “he was tackling an idea not becautilize it was a white space” but becautilize he was personally compelled by solving a specific problem.