Billionaire-backed funding agency Monarch Collective has expanded the dimensions of its fund in gentle of the continued surge in reputation of girls’s sports activities.
The fund, which launched in 2023 is increasing from $150 million to $250 million, with many of the further capital coming from present buyers, which embody Melina French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Whats up Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden, and former Netflix govt Cindy Holland and accomplice Annie Imhoff.
New buyers have come on board, too, the agency mentioned in an announcement Thursday, together with Beth Brooke, Ernst & Younger’s former international vice chairman of public coverage, and Elizabeth Yee, govt vice chairman of applications at The Rockefeller Basis.
“We’ll be the most important fund in ladies’s sports activities,” mentioned Kara Nortman, Monarch co-founder and managing accomplice. “You hear numerous noise about individuals beginning it now, however we have been at it for awhile.”
Monarch Collective fashioned to speculate solely in ladies’s sports activities, notably in leagues, groups and media rights.
Previous to Monarch, Nortman labored at a enterprise capital agency and was beforehand co-head of the mergers and acquisitions group at IAC. She additionally co-founded the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League’s Angel Metropolis FC in 2020. She began the agency alongside Jasmine Robinson, who was most lately at Causeway, a progress stage funding fund targeted on sports activities, media, gaming and health. She additionally held funding roles at varied corporations, in addition to the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers.
Monarch sometimes takes minority stakes with its investments, however works intently with the homeowners of groups, Nortman mentioned.
“We’re doing day-to-day, hands-on work alongside the management proprietor by way of hiring groups, designing follow services, being a sounding board when one thing goes proper or one thing goes unsuitable, actually pondering by way of what’s the distinctive fan expertise on this [team’s] market and the way does it tie to the [team’s] mission,” mentioned Nortman. “And the quantity of capital we might put to work towards that has gone up.”
To this point, Monarch has invested in three NWSL groups — Angel Metropolis FC, BOS Nation and the San Diego Wave. Final yr, Angel Metropolis offered a controlling stake to journalist Willow Bay and Disney CEO Bob Iger for an undisclosed sum that valued the group at $250 million. The agency mentioned it was the best valuation on file for an expert ladies’s sports activities group.
Monarch was based on the cusp of what has develop into one of many greatest spikes in reputation for girls’s sports activities in years, if ever. Specifically, rookie stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese helped to carry the Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation to file scores final season, and usually, the viewers round ladies’s sports activities has gained floor and attracted extra advertisers.
Consequently, buyers are eager to participate within the progress.
“There is not any denying that girls’s sports activities is surging, and that we’re additionally pioneers and specialists on this. So individuals stored coming to us, desirous to work with us to construct out enterprise plans or actually have a look at issues earlier than they even develop into investable,” Nortman mentioned.
Monarch plans to spend money on each U.S. and worldwide groups within the close to time period, based on Thursday’s launch.
“We are inclined to deal with probably the most mature ladies’s sports activities — so those the place we see a path for media income to go up and to the best very predictably,” Nortman mentioned. “The core thesis is that we are able to construct to interrupt even, or near it, with group degree revenues.”
Media rights for the WNBA, for instance, might see a worth reevaluation after the 2028 season to account for its current progress in reputation, CNBC reported final yr. The WNBA media rights have been negotiated as a part of the bigger $77 billion NBA settlement, which begins subsequent season. The WNBA-specific contract is valued at $2.2 billion over 11 seasons.
