After nearly four years out of professional tennis, Serena Williams returned to Wimbledon this year before withdrawing on July 4 due to a knee injury. Off the court, however, she has never done anything: she welcomed a second child with her husband, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, in 2023; launched a brand partnership with weight loss telehealth provider Ro last year; and continued to expand his footprint in venture capital through Serena Ventures.
Williams quietly founded Serena Ventures in 2014, launching it in 2019 with the goal of bringing back companies led by women, people of color and other underrepresented founders. The company raised $111 million in its first venture fund in 2022 and has since invested in more than 100 companies across fintech, health technology and e-commerce.
Its track record is remarkable: 14 portfolio companies have reached unicorn status, including Indonesian coffee chain Kopi Kenangan and weight-loss app Noom. More than half (54 percent) of Serena Ventures’ portfolio companies were founded by women, compared to only 1.1 percent of funding going to women by 2025.
“It’s very important for me to do a plan B while I’m doing my plan A,” Williams told a 2024 TikTok video about building a company and his tennis career.
Here are some of the most notable founders backed by Serena Ventures, whose portfolio is 85 percent led by underrepresented entrepreneurs.
Kara Egan, Teal Health
Serena Ventures first invested in Teal Health in 2023 as part of an $8.8 million seed round alongside firms including Metrodora Ventures and Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, and will also participate in a $10 million round in 2025.
Egan, 45, founded Teal Health in 2020 to expand access to cervical cancer screening. Its flagship product, the Teal Wand at home, has shown higher detection rates of HPV, the leading cause of cervical cancer, compared to clinical trials, according to a clinical trial funded in part by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health.
Egan said Williams’ company helped sharpen the company’s focus. “[Their support] It reinforced our belief that preventive care products must be designed with as strong an experience as clinical results,” he told the Observer, adding that the team has been an active partner in growing the business without losing sight of the patient’s needs.
Khalid David, TracFlo
Serena Ventures invested in TracFlo in 2021 as part of a $1 million award issued through the HBCU Startup Pitch Competition at the Invesco QQQ Legacy Classic.
David founded TracFlo in 2019 to streamline construction financial management, helping teams track time and materials, manage proposals and expedite payments. He previously worked as a safety engineer at Turner Construction and led Bunkers Hill Construction in New York.
In 2024, David participated in the Google for Startups Accelerator, where combining Gemini helped improve the efficiency of customers in the area by 80 percent.
Rodney Williams and Travis Holloway, SoLo Funds
Serena Ventures invested an undisclosed sum of seven percent in SoLo Funds in 2023.
Founded in 2018, the fintech platform enables users to borrow and lend small, short-term funds within a community-based model. Holloway, 38, serves as CEO, and Williams, 41, is president.
The company has facilitated more than 2.5 million loans to date. Despite a lawsuit from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2025 over alleged misleading advertising (the lawsuit has since been dismissed), SoLo Funds are still widely used.
Ishveen Jolly and Ronneil Nesbitt, OpenSponsorship
Serena Ventures has backed OpenSponsorship in 2022 with a seven-figure investment.
This platform was founded in 2015, connecting athletes, creators and wellness promoters with products for marketing cooperation. Clients include Jake Paul, LeBron James, Taylor Fritz and Hailie Deegan, while brands such as Walmart, IZOD and Harmless Harvest have used the platform to secure talent deals.
Jolly, a former director of British Wrestling, emphasized the link between content and engagement. “I feel like the game is there because the marriage is there. And the marriage is there because their content is interesting,” he told Sports Business Journal recently. Nesbitt, a software developer, leads the company’s technology strategy.
Many founders are backed by Serena Ventures
- Mina Shahid, Catherine Denis and Benjamin Best founded Numida in 2016, a fintech platform based in Uganda serving small and medium enterprises.
- Yele Bademosi and Joseph Taiwo Orilogbon launched Nestcoin in 2021 as a business studio and hosting company focused on crypto-native products.
- Joanna Strober, Sharon Meers, Dr. Kathleen Jordan, Dr. Mindy Goldman and Jill Herzig founded Midi Health in 2021, a platform that caters to the health needs of midlife women.
- Emily Hosie founded Rebel in 2021 to resell and liquidate overstock and open-box baby gear and home goods.
- Wemimo Abbey and Samir Goel launched Esusu in 2018 to help employers build credit through timely payment reporting.
- Isoken Igbinedio founded Parfait in 2020, combining AI and human knowledge to create custom wigs tailored to individual measurements, skin tone and style preferences.
