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Doubles Partner
Image by Greg Betza
Image by Greg Betza
When Serena Williams announced her retirement earlier this month, there was plenty of talk of the tennis superstar’s 23 Grand Slam titles. But a number of news outlets also noted her involvement in early-stage investing and the key role played by Serena Ventures General Partner Alison Rapaport Stillman (MBA 2018), who joined forces with Williams in 2018.
The firm, which announced an $111 million fund in March, already included a portfolio of 60 firms from Williams earliest investment activity; she wrote one of the first checks for Masterclass, and was also an early backer of Noom and Impossible Foods, among others. Upon learning that just two percent of funding goes to female founders, William’s made a strategic commitment to diversity and inclusion; today, 78 percent of founders backed by Serena Ventures are women or people of color.
Williams was heavily involved in her firm’s decision-making process well before she announced her retirement. In a December 2020 interview with the HBS Alumni Bulletin, Stillman describes the duo’s skill sets as “different and super complementary. I’m more on the analytical side, the portfolio-construction side. She can get an amazing read on a person and see the big picture really quickly, whereas it takes me longer. I think celebrities don’t always experience pushback, but I give that, which she respects, and she does it with me.”
Two years later, that hasn’t changed. “I feel like I go to sleep getting messages from her and wake up getting messages from her,” Rapaport told Fortune. “Nothing’s going to replace what tennis was for her, but as she’s thinking about what’s next—it’s exciting to see her as passionate about this as you see her on the court.”
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