Short version: She said she wanted it to be "bigger than me." Serena Ventures grew out of Serena Williams' own investing from 2014. In July 2026 it became Starfire Ventures, and she said a name on something "can limit what you do."
This is the first of a monthly series we call Built their own: an athlete who built a business from their own name, told from national reporting and the public record. Leave has no tie to Williams or her firm. It's her story.
Hers starts with her own money and ends, for now, with her first name coming off the door. In between is a trademark ruling that says something plain about what a famous name does and doesn't carry.
It started as her own checks
Williams began investing in 2014 and didn't announce the company publicly until 2019, Front Office Sports reported in March 2022. For years it was one athlete's own money going into young companies.
Her trademark application, filed November 16, 2020, dates the name itself. It claims Serena Ventures was first used on August 18, 2017, and first used in commerce, meaning in actual business, by December 3, 2018.
By early 2022, Front Office Sports counted angel investments in about 60 brands. An angel investment is a person's own money put into a company early, before the big funds arrive. Daily Harvest and MasterClass were on the list.
The same report said 13 of those companies had become unicorns. A unicorn is a private company valued at $1 billion or more.
Then other people's money
In March 2022 Serena Ventures announced its first fund: $111 million. A fund is money from outside investors that the firm invests for them. Front Office Sports named some of them: Liontree, the Kapor Foundation, Norwest and CapitalG.
It also named her business partner, Alison Rapaport Stillman. So by 2022 her name was on a firm that other people trusted with their money, not only her own.
Then tennis came second
That August, Williams wrote in Vogue that she was stepping back from the sport. "I'm evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me," she wrote, as ABC News and Good Morning America reported it.
The firm was one of those things. By 2026 Fast Company counted 16 unicorns in the portfolio, three more than Front Office Sports had counted four years earlier.
July 2026: the name comes off
In an interview with Fast Company's Robert Safian, Williams said the firm had rebranded. "We're now Starfire Ventures," she said. Her reason was the name itself. She wanted the firm to be "bigger than me."
She said that when you "put a name on something, it can limit what you do," and that she wanted the firm to last. It kept the SV initials, because the team had always called it SV.
AfroTech, reporting the change on July 31, named Williams as managing partner and Beth Ferreira as general partner. The old web address, serenaventures.com, now forwards to starfireventures.com.
She built it on her name, then took the name off so it could outlast her.
August 2026: a ruling on the old name
Twelve days after AfroTech's report, a federal board ruled on the old name. Williams had applied in 2020 to register SERENA VENTURES as a trademark for venture capital and investment services.
A trademark is a name the law protects for a kind of business. The examiner refused hers because SERENA is registered to a different owner, for services that include "capital investment services" and "financing services."
The legal test is "likelihood of confusion," which means whether buyers could mix up who is behind each one. On August 12, 2026, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board said yes and affirmed the refusal.
The Board started from the services each registration lists, and found them identical in part. On her fame, it wrote one line we keep rereading:
Her "renown in tennis, or even sports more generally, does not automatically transfer to a different commercial field."
The opinion is marked as not a precedent of the Board. The Patent and Trademark Office's docket now lists the application as abandoned after the appeal. Law360 reported the ruling on August 13.
The rename came first. In the interview as Fast Company published it, she gave her reasons and didn't mention the trademark. We won't guess at more than that.
What the record shows
A name did a lot of work here. It opened doors for one athlete's own investing, then for a $111 million fund. On paper, though, a name on a court and a name on a fund are two different things.
Honestly, that one surprised us. Being known in a sport didn't settle who could register the name for investing. The Board looked at the services, not the fame.
Williams' answer to all of it was a new name she chose. Starfire Ventures doesn't carry her name, and by her own account, that's the point.
Why this is on our blog
Every athlete with a deal already has a small business with their name on it, even if it's one contract and a tax form. Most of them don't have a firm, a partner or a fund. They have the paperwork.
Leave reads the contracts back in plain words, keeps the dates on Home, and takes 0 percent of any deal. Every source is linked at the bottom of this post. You decide what your name goes on.
Questions people ask
Is Serena Ventures still around?
Yes, under a new name. It became Starfire Ventures in July 2026 and kept the SV initials. AfroTech reported Williams as managing partner and Beth Ferreira as general partner.
Why couldn't she register Serena Ventures as a trademark?
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board found it likely to be confused with a registered SERENA mark that covers overlapping financial services, and on August 12, 2026 it affirmed the refusal. The opinion is marked as not a precedent of the Board.
When did Serena Williams start investing?
In 2014, Front Office Sports reported. Her trademark application says the name Serena Ventures was first used in August 2017, the firm went public in 2019, and its first fund of $111 million was announced in March 2022.
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