As a world-renowned tennis player, Serena Williams knows her way around brand partnerships and sponsorships. In her career, she’s worked with huge sports giants like Nike, Wilson Sporting Goods and Gatorade. Outside of athletic sponsorships, she’s worked with tech companies like Beats, Bumble and Intel. As of late, Williams has stepped into venture capital investing and her most recent investment aims to help athletes secure coveted brand deals.
This week, New York-based OpenSponsorship announced it pulled in an undisclosed seven-figure investment from Williams. The startup plans to use its fresh funding to expand globally and onboard new athletes and brands to the platform.
OpenSponsorship’s marketing technology allows athletes to sign up to the platform for free and apply to work with brands like Walmart, Foot Locker and Levi’s.
According to OpenSponsorship, it facilitated over 10,000 deals across 400 brands worth $5 million in top-line revenue last year. There are currently 12,000 athletes on the OpenSponsorship platform.
“Brand sponsorship is vital to an athlete’s career and OpenSponsorship is giving them more control and ownership over that process,” Williams said in a statement. “But this is also something that businesses will benefit from. I love the fact that this platform puts supporting athletes at the core of its business.”
Though 70 percent of the athletes on OpenSponsorship are American, the startup plans to use its fund to expand to the U.K. and bring on international athletes.
Last year, the startup raised a $4 million growth round from other big names in sports like Philadelphia 76ers co-owner David Blitzer and executives from WWE and Excel Sports Management.
Outside of its recent raise, OpenSponsorship is also hiring for six roles ranging from engineering to sales.
In addition to investing in OpenSponsorship, Williams also invested in Seattle-based Karat this week to double the number of Black software engineers in the country.
