Collaborative Fund takes a stake in D.C. United, following Thrive's lead into sports

Collaborative Fund, the 15-year-old, New York-based generalist venture firm known for early bets on Lyft, Reddit, Sweetgreen, and Olipop, is taking a stake in soccer club D.C. United and its stadium, Audi Field. It’s the latest — and smallest — firm to follow a path that Thrive Capital opened just months ago: turning venture money into pro sports ownership.

Thrive, run by Joshua Kushner, launched a vehicle called Thrive Eternal explicitly built to hold “iconic franchises and cultural institutions” for decades, funded largely by investors already in its venture and growth funds. Thrive Eternal started with a stake in the San Francisco Giants, then — with former Disney CEO Bob Iger joining as co-owner — bought the Lakers outright for a record $12.5 billion. Historically, money has flowed into pro sports through personal tech fortunes (Vinod Khosla’s family agreed this summer to buy the Seattle Seahawks for a record $9.6 billion) and private equity firms like Sixth Street, Ares, RedBird, and Arctos, which hold varying stakes across MLB, the NFL, the NBA, and European soccer.

Collaborative’s approach differs from both: it’s investing out of the same early-stage fund it uses for seed and Series A checks, treating the deal more like infrastructure than a buy-and-hold asset. In a memo shared with TechCrunch, founder and managing partner Craig Shapiro called the deal an extension of what the firm already does, arguing that D.C. United’s status as one of MLS’s original clubs gives Collaborative access to an institution with a decades-long fan base — bolstered by tailwinds including a recent World Cup, the upcoming LA Olympics, rising youth soccer participation in the U.S., D.C. United’s ownership of Audi Field, a talent pipeline through Loudoun County, Virginia, and rights to a future Baltimore expansion team.

Shapiro’s thesis, laid out at a TechCrunch StrictlyVC event Thursday night, centers less on the team as an appreciating asset and more on what it makes possible: turning Audi Field into a showcase for Collaborative’s portfolio, such as activations for fitness-band maker Whoop or Olipop drinks at game-day concessions, drawing on the stadium’s tens of thousands of predictable weekly visitors as a distribution channel. Rising valuations likely helped the pitch too — Inter Miami’s franchise value has roughly doubled in the two years since Lionel Messi arrived, MLS’s average club value is up roughly 134% since 2019, and D.C. United’s own valuation has climbed from $35 million in 2008 to $785 million today, including its ownership of Audi Field and surrounding real estate. The deal is subject to MLS approval.

Why it matters

Collaborative’s move shows that Thrive’s playbook for turning venture capital into sports ownership is spreading beyond mega-funds to smaller generalist firms willing to treat a franchise as both a portfolio showcase and a bet on soaring valuations.