Serena Williams’ new venture fund raises $111 million

Reuters | Tennis great Serena Williams raised US$111 million for her new early stage venture capital firm Serena Ventures, according to the fund’s blog post on Tuesday.

The company has invested in fintechs Propel, Cointracker and edtech Masterclass, among others. It manages a portfolio of over 60 angel investments, thirteen of which are unicorns, according to the blog.

Alison Rapaport, who has previously worked at J.P. Morgan, Wasserman and Melo7Tech Ventures, leads Serena Ventures along with Williams.

The firm’s move to raise its inaugural fund comes after a recent broader sell-off in tech stocks that is likely to put pressure on private valuations.

However, the world’s largest investors including SoftBank, Tiger Global and Andreessen Horowitz are still betting on valuations recovering later this year riding on strong investor appetite for cryptocurrency and the so-called metaverse.

Last month, Insight Partners raised US$20 billion for its twelfth flagship fund, its largest fundraise to date, as it looked to ramp up investments in technology and software companies.

In January, venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz also raised US$9 billion through three new funds to invest across startups in different sectors, amid a global funding boom as large investors back high-growth tech startups at a record pace.