Kara Nortman: The VC Who Bet on Women’s Sports - and Helped Build the Market

Kara Nortman, veteran venture capitalist, stepped into an arena most investors overlooked — women’s sports. In 2020 she co-founded Angel City FC, a women’s soccer team. Despite the team’s modest 2025 season result — finishing 11th out of 13 — its commercial performance surprised many. With a well-known ownership group and aggressive marketing and sponsorship strategies, Angel City quickly transformed from “zero to $30 million in revenue,” selling out games and drawing interest well before players ever kicked a ball.

This success laid the foundation for a broader vision: building a sustainable business ecosystem around women’s sports.

Monarch Collective: Betting Big on a Growing Opportunity

In 2023, Nortman — along with co-founder Jasmine Robinson — launched Monarch Collective, a $250 million fund dedicated exclusively to investments in women’s sports.

Monarch doesn’t just write checks and walk away. Rather than spreading bets thin, they take concentrated stakes and commit to active involvement. That has meant backing women’s soccer clubs inside and outside the U.S., including a 38% investment this year in Germany’s FC Viktoria Berlin — Monarch’s first overseas investment.

Nortman argues women’s sports are at an inflection point. When Monarch was founded, the global women’s-sports market was largely dismissed — once valued around half a billion dollars. Now, she says, it’s approaching $3 billion, with room to grow much further.

Different Playbook — Not a Copy of Men’s Sports

Nortman is clear: the women’s-sports economy requires its own formula. You can’t just replicate men’s-sports playbooks. Monarch’s success stems from mixing sports with culture, branding, community, and lifestyle engagement — blending athletic performance with creative marketing.

That means novel ideas: lifestyle collaborations, sponsorships tied to fashion or culture, diverse revenue streams beyond ticket-sales — thinking beyond the traditional stadium-based model. With this, she argues, women’s sports can attract investors, brands, media rights deals — not just fans.

More Than Business — Building Infrastructure for Lasting Growth

Monarch doesn’t just chase trends; it aims for long-term stability. The fund believes in building infrastructure — operational expertise, governance, media rights, community engagement, and sustainable business models that can outlast hype cycles.

The idea: treat women’s sports like any other emerging asset class — invest early, help build viable franchises, and let growth compound over time.

What This Shift Means — For Sports, Investment & Culture

• Women’s sports are starting to be seen as a serious investment arena — not a niche or side-show.
• With dedicated capital and operational support, teams can be more than sporting entities — they can become lifestyle brands, cultural institutions, and profitable businesses.
• The growing momentum may encourage more investors, broadcasters, sponsors to consider women’s sports seriously.
• For athletes and fans, this could mean better infrastructure, broader media coverage, improved pay and visibility — helping close long-standing gender gaps in sports.

Final Thoughts: Long Game, Not Flashy Moments

Kara Nortman and Monarch Collective are proving that investing in women’s sports isn’t just about riding social media hype or star players. It’s about building a foundational market — where athletes, fans, businesses and investors can all grow together.

This isn’t a bet on a single team or star — it’s a bet on a movement. And with each stake, each marketing idea, each expansion, the market becomes a little more real.