Brian Nichols is the co-founder of Angel Squad, a community where you’ll learn how to angel invest and get a chance to invest as little as $1k into Hustle Fund's top performing early-stage startups

Carmelo Anthony played 19 NBA seasons, scored more than 28,000 career points, won three Olympic gold medals, and is a 10-time All-Star. He is 10th on the all-time NBA scoring list. When he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2025, he said he never thought it was possible.

What he does think about, and has for over a decade, is technology investing.

Melo7 Tech Partners

Carmelo Anthony investments began in earnest when he co-founded Melo7 Tech Partners in 2013 with Stuart Goldfarb, a former CEO of Bertelsmann Direct North America. The firm was launched while Anthony was still playing for the New York Knicks. This kind of discipline, building an investment practice while operating at peak professional capacity, is exactly what Angel Squad members develop. It was also one of the earliest examples of an active professional athlete building a structured venture vehicle rather than just making individual angel bets.

Melo7 focuses on seed, early-stage, and later-stage investments in digital media, consumer internet, and technology ventures. The firm collaborated with prominent venture capital funds including Andreessen Horowitz and Accel. Its portfolio includes Lyft, backed before the ride-sharing category was crowded; DraftKings, which went public; SeatGeek, which reached a $1.26 billion valuation in a March 2025 transaction; Bonobos, the men's fashion brand acquired by Walmart; Andela, the global tech talent platform backed by Google Ventures; Vivino, the wine discovery app; Overtime, the sports media startup that grew from under $100 million to over $500 million valuation; and Clubhouse, the audio social networking platform.

The firm has invested at least $73 million across 20-plus deals. Melo7 also backed Mophie, the phone accessory company, which sold to Zagg for an acquisition price reportedly exceeding $100 million. An early $500,000 stake reportedly returned over $5 million.

Isos7 Sports Investments

In 2023, Anthony expanded his investment footprint significantly by partnering with Isos Capital Management and executives Michelle Wilson and George Barrios to launch Isos7 Growth Equity, a $750 million sports-focused private equity fund. The fund targets sports properties, leagues, media, and adjacent businesses at the intersection of sports and entertainment.

Eric Bahn of Hustle Fund has noted that the most compelling next frontier in early-stage investing involves sports media, fan engagement technology, and the monetization infrastructure around live events. Anthony's Isos7 fund is an institutional expression of that thesis at growth equity scale.

Angel Squad members investing in sports-adjacent startups have access to deal flow and GP judgment from Hustle Fund partners who think carefully about those same categories. The community of 2,500-plus investors across 50-plus countries evaluates these deals collaboratively. Find out how at hustlefund.vc/squad.

The Hall of Fame Timing

Anthony was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2025. In an interview with Fortune around the induction, he talked openly about his investment philosophy, mentioning a missed opportunity in early crypto that he said he should have followed his instincts on. He was also candid that not every deal works out and that his approach has always prioritized founders he believed in over pure market timing.

That founder-first perspective tracks with how Melo7 has operated. The firm has consistently backed companies in digital media and consumer internet where Anthony could add something beyond capital, whether that was access to an athlete network, credibility in sports-adjacent categories, or the kind of social signaling that comes from a recognizable name.

Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund has noted that the best angel investors over time are the ones who develop a clear sense of where they can add genuine value beyond a check, then build their portfolio around those areas. Anthony's career demonstrates that lesson across two decades.

The Social Change Fund

Anthony co-founded The Social Change Fund alongside LeBron James, Chris Paul, and other athletes in response to racial injustice in the US. The fund provides capital and resources to organizations addressing systemic inequality, centering athlete influence around advocacy that has financial backing attached.

He also holds a stake in Puerto Rico Football Club, the country's only professional soccer team.

What His Career Teaches About the Long Game

Anthony started investing in technology before most athletes or entertainers took venture capital seriously. He did it while still competing at the highest level of professional basketball, which required genuine commitment to learning the sector rather than treating it as a side project. His public comments about deals he missed, most notably crypto, reflect the self-awareness of someone who is actually doing the work.

His Hall of Fame career gives him the platform. The decade of investment discipline gives him the judgment.