Relentless Pursuit Allows Two Young Investors to Get Serena Williams and Usain Bolt to Invest in Their Start-up

For close to three decades, Serena Williams and Usain Bolt have undoubtedly been the flag bearers of their sport. The two have reached heights of their reports that remain untouched by a majority of their fellow players. However, the gigantic aura of the two has not just restricted them to their sports. Apart from tennis, Serena and Bolt are also avid capital investors.

Stepping outside the tennis world, in 2014, Serena launched her own venture capital firm ‘Serena Ventures’. Ever since then, she has invested in various startups around the world. One of them is the sports booking platform ‘Let’s Do This’. Talking about the firm, one of the founders of the startup, Alex Rose recalled how he managed to get Serena and Bolt on board.

Serena Williams invests in Let’s Do This

‘Let’s Do This’ is a graduate of the Y Combinators. A program launched in 2005, helping young startups to raise funds. Every year, a large set of investing giants gather around to invest in numerous startups through this program. Amongst the many investing giants, one is the husband of Serena Williams. Alexis Ohanian.

The co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian has been a part of Y Combinators since its early age. The 39-year-old makes numerous investments through his venture capital firm ‘Seven Seven Six’. While he is one of the investors in ‘Let’s Do This’, as per Rose, he is also the one who helped the startup get Serena Williams on board.

Talking to the media, Rose opened up about how he and his team managed to get one of the greatest sporting legends to invest in their startup.

“Serena is married to a guy called Alexis Ohanian. He is one of the co-founders of Reddit and was a part of very every early batch of Y Combinator,” Rose said.  “At the end of Y Combinator when we pitched to investors, he got back in touch about the opportunity to invest. At that point, I think we went back to him and said, “look, we’d love to take investment from you. But you also happen to be married to one of if not the greatest sportswoman ever,” he further added.

Getting Usain Bolt on board

While Rose revealed how he and his team managed to get Serena Williams to invest in their startup, he asserted that it was his co-founder, Sam Browne who got Usain Bolt to put his value in the company.

As told by Rose, Browne visited Usain Bolt’s bar opening in London. That’s where the 29-year-old persuaded Bolt for dinner. Having dinner with the Olympic gold medalist, the Cambridge graduate pitched ‘Let’s Do This’ in front of Bolt. The rest…is history.

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To date, ‘Let’s Do This’ has raised just over $31 million. Seeing a growing trend and with such investors on board, the British company is aiming to expand its working space to other parts of the world as well.

Source: | This article originally belongs to Essentially Sports