Monarch Collective

Kara Nortman and Jasmine Robinson are the firm's co-managing partners and run its investment decisions jointly. Nortman's background is in venture capital, with over a decade at Upfront Ventures and a track record of consumer-tech investments; Robinson spent her earlier career in middle-market private equity at Goldman Sachs before co-founding Monarch. The two-person leadership structure means investment committee decisions are made by both managing partners.

Monarch operates as a closed-end private equity fund focused exclusively on control investments in women's professional sports. The firm raised a $150 million fund that closed in 2023, making equity investments in women's soccer clubs and then expanding into the Cleveland WNBA expansion bid. It does not publicly describe itself as an open-ended vehicle or a family office, and its investor base appears to include institutional LPs alongside individual athlete co-investors.

Monarch's disclosed portfolio is entirely concentrated in women's professional sports properties. Its known positions include Angel City FC and San Diego Wave FC in the NWSL, FC Viktoria Berlin in the German women's Bundesliga, Boston Legacy FC, and a Cleveland WNBA expansion team. The firm has not disclosed any non-sports holdings or investments in adjacent technology, media rights platforms, or sports-adjacent businesses, and its public positioning treats those adjacent opportunities as within scope but not yet publicly tagged.

Monarch's sourcing model relies on the networks of its two managing partners and the signal effect of operating a dedicated women's sports fund. Kara Nortman's board seat at Angel City FC since the club's founding gave the firm a proprietary entry into NWSL team equity before the league's expansion fees escalated; Jasmine Robinson's private equity background provides institutional access to team sales and expansion-rights processes. The fund has also attracted athlete co-investors such as Caleb Williams, whose participation creates additional proprietary origination channels in the professional sports community.

Kara Nortman was a founding investor and board member of Angel City FC before Monarch Collective was formed. The fund later acquired a stake in the club, making Angel City a portfolio holding alongside San Diego Wave FC — Monarch now holds interests in two NWSL clubs. This dual-team structure within a single league is unusual among NWSL owners and signals that Monarch operates with a house-of-brands model rather than a single-club investment thesis.