Will Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Will Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on category-defining businesses in sports, entertainment, consumer, health, wellness, and media. The firm's own site describes the mandate as investing in category-defining companies across sports, entertainment, and consumer, and its metadata frames the firm as early-stage teammates for consumer, health, and media startups. TechCrunch's October 18, 2022 coverage of Fund II adds important precision: Will Ventures applies a sports-centered lens to larger venture categories such as consumer health, digital health, consumer technology, sports media, and entertainment. The core thesis is not limited to professional sports teams or leagues. Instead, Will treats sports as a cultural and distribution wedge into broader consumer, health, media, and technology markets.
The firm emphasizes founder perseverance and competitive drive. Its homepage says the team looks for entrepreneurs who take pride in being underdogs, face obstacles without backing down, and are relentless in pursuing their ambition. That founder psychology lens appears consistent with the backgrounds of co-founders Isaiah Kacyvenski, a former NFL player, and Brian Reilly, a product and research operator with sports, fitness, healthcare, wearables, AI, and machine-learning experience. The firm also says it is research-backed and leverages access and expertise to help founders win.
Stage Focus
The clearest sourced stage focus is seed. TechCrunch reported that Will Ventures' $150 million Fund II would continue investing in seed-stage companies in consumer, health, sports, and entertainment. Recent activity shows some flexibility beyond initial seed: Will participated in Jump's $23 million Series A in August 2025, Birches Health's combined Seed and Series A financing in September 2025, and The Snow League's $15 million funding round in January 2025 as an existing investor. The working interpretation is that Will Ventures is primarily a seed investor with follow-on or selective Series A participation in companies that fit its sports, consumer, health, and media thesis.
Check Size
No reliable public source found a standard initial check size. TechCrunch reported $55 million for Fund I and $150 million for Fund II, and quoted the firm describing a low-volume, high-conviction model of constructing roughly 20 to 25 companies rather than a very broad portfolio. That implies meaningful ownership-focused checks, but the exact check-size range should remain unknown until sourced directly from the firm or fund materials.
Lead Tendency
Will Ventures appears willing to lead or co-lead when the opportunity is central to its thesis, while also participating in follow-on rounds. Examples include NCL's seed round, announced as led by Will Ventures and Founder Collective with Bradley Beal, and Devotion's $4 million seed round, reported as led by Basecase and Will Ventures. In other recent events, Will participated rather than led: Jump's Series A was led by Seven Seven Six, Birches Health's Series A was led by AlleyCorp with Seed led by General Catalyst, and The Snow League's January 2025 round was led by Left Lane Capital. A balanced classification is therefore "both," with strongest lead behavior at seed and follow-on participation in later or syndicate-led rounds.
Recent Activity
Recent sourced activity indicates the firm is still actively deploying. In March 2026, Devotion raised $4 million for an AI creator-marketing platform, with the round reported as led by Basecase and Will Ventures. In September 2025, Birches Health announced $20 million in combined Series A and Seed funding with ongoing participation from Will Ventures to scale clinical treatment for gambling and behavioral addictions. In August 2025, Jump announced a $23 million Series A led by Seven Seven Six with participation from existing investors including Will Ventures. In January 2025, The Snow League announced $15 million with participation from Will Ventures and other sports investors. Candy Digital, a Will portfolio company listed in third-party portfolio sources, was acquired by Futureverse in April 2025, providing a sourced exit event in the sports and digital collectibles/media part of the thesis.
Portfolio Highlights
The portfolio is concentrated around sports, fan engagement, consumer health, wellness, creator/media, and adjacent infrastructure. Representative companies include Jump, a vertical software platform for professional sports teams; The Snow League, a new global winter sports competition business; Birches Health, a virtual behavioral-addiction care provider focused on gambling and sports betting-related addiction; Devotion, an AI-enabled creator marketing platform; Aktivate, software for scholastic sports management; Ness, a wellcare rewards and credit-card platform; Mighty Health, a wellness platform for aging adults; Sunnyside, a mindful drinking and alcohol reduction app; National Cycling League, a technology-enabled professional cycling league; Just Women's Sports, a women's sports media company; Candy Digital, a digital collectibles company; and Players Health, an insurance and risk-management platform for sports and fitness organizations.
Team
The firm is led by co-founders and managing partners Brian Reilly and Isaiah Kacyvenski. Reilly's official bio highlights experience across sports, fitness, healthcare, wearables, AI, machine learning, product management at MC10, and research leadership at Sports Innovation Lab. Kacyvenski's official bio highlights Harvard degrees, technology patents, and an eight-year NFL career. The current investment and platform team also includes Ben Gardner, a partner who previously spent more than five years at Andreessen Horowitz building the consumer go-to-market platform; Kushaan Ahuja, a partner based in Los Angeles with prior venture and growth investing experience at Endeavor and TKO across consumer AI, creator economy, gaming, emerging CPG, and sports; Aaron Miller, principal; Yash Gupta, investor; and Jacob Westphal, portfolio lead with prior a16z B2C go-to-market experience.
Decision Process
No public source found a formal decision process or decision timeline. The fund's low-volume, high-conviction language suggests a partnership-driven process with substantial research and access to athlete, union, team-owner, and talent-agency networks. Founders should expect diligence around category size, cultural relevance, distribution, and the ability for Will's sports and entertainment network to create differentiated value. Specific timelines should be treated as unknown.
Founder Preferences
Will's explicit founder preference is for tenacious founders who are comfortable being underdogs and who show persistence through uncertainty. The firm appears especially relevant for founders with a strong wedge into sports, fan communities, health and wellness behavior, creator/media distribution, or consumer products with cultural pull. Given the team composition, founders who can benefit from consumer go-to-market help, sports industry access, athlete or team-owner relationships, and research-backed market insight are likely the strongest fit.
Geographic Focus
TechCrunch identified Will Ventures as Boston-based, and the firm's official team bio for Kushaan Ahuja states that he is based in its Los Angeles office. The portfolio is heavily U.S.-oriented, with investments in New York, San Francisco, Boston/consumer-health and sports-market companies, but there is no reliable public statement of geographic restrictions. The conservative classification is U.S.-focused with Boston and Los Angeles presence, not a strict geography-limited fund.