Good morning! A Democratic senator won't run for reelection in New Hampshire, Sequoia Capital is interested in Mira Murati's new venture, and new capital is flowing into women's sports.
- Ready to invest. Women's sports are big business. That was doubly proven by Monarch Collective, which this morning announced its fund investing in women's sports has raised a fresh $100 million to reach $250 million.
Melinda French Gates' Pivotal Ventures is one of the key LPs that injected that $100 million into the fund, alongside individuals from Hello Sunshine, EY, the Rockefeller Foundation, and more. Investor Kara Nortman is behind the fund, which has so far invested in three National Women's Soccer League clubs: Angel City Football Club (of which Nortman was a cofounder, before the team's $250 million sale to Willow Bay and Bob Iger; she's still a minority shareholder separate from Monarch's investment); the forthcoming BOS Nation FC; and the San Diego Wave. The firm expects to make two to three more investments this year, potentially outside of soccer for the first time.
Nortman says that she spent years thinking about what the right size fund was to invest in teams, leagues, and rights businesses across women's sports. "What's happened is the market has evolved, and we've got a very interesting portfolio in place," she says.
Monarch acts as a hands-on investor, joining teams as operators, helping with tasks like finding the right stadium space in Boston. (Most leagues permit ownership of multiple teams, with rules limiting involvement on the sporting side.) It's also a hands-on partner to its LPs—educating them about the sports landscape as they consider becoming control owners, and finding those opportunities to buy into teams directly. Monarch is Pivotal's only sports exposure.
Next up, Nortman is looking at Europe, where soccer is massively popular—but women's soccer is less commercialized. She's eager to get into women's basketball, but she aims to use her firm's time wisely. "The opportunity cost of where we spend time matters a lot in women's sports, where everybody needs support," she says.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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