By: Aparna Sreevalsan
DIVERSITY becomes the focus point for Serena ventures LLC, a California based firm that concentrates on investing in early-stage companies and is founded by Serena Williams, the 23- times Grand Slam champion.
The firm has raised $111 million (£80 million) over a period of nine years as an early stage venture capital fund that focusses on diversity. Only less than 2 per cent of the raised fund goes for women entrepreneurs which is the sole reason for the firm to aim at diversity.
“I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that 98 per cent of all of this money we’re talking about — billions of dollars — goes to one type of individual”, said Serena Williams.
The firm has invested in NFT marketplace Bitski and Bitcoin rewards application Lolli. Also, the company recently invested in a Nigeria-based web3 start-up to make cryptocurrency more accessible. Fintech firms like Propel, Cointracker, Esusu, and an online platform MasterClass, where Serena taught Tennis classes are all invested by Serena Ventures. Thirteen of its angel investments now own a Unicorn status (Unicorn status is a term used in the venture capital industry to describe a privately held start-up company with a value of over $1 billion).
Serena Ventures was founded in 2014 and is an active angel investor for 60 start-up companies. The company is led by people from underrepresented communities.
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