Collaborative Fund, a New York venture firm with roughly $1 billion under management, is taking a stake in Major League Soccer club D.C. United and its stadium, Audi Field. The move makes it the latest, and smallest, venture firm to follow Thrive Capital into professional sports ownership, a trend that has seen venture money move beyond the traditional routes of individual tech fortunes and private equity buyouts.

Thrive Capital, led by Joshua Kushner, pioneered this shift through its Thrive Eternal vehicle, which took a stake in the San Francisco Giants before buying the Los Angeles Lakers outright for a record $12.5 billion alongside former Disney chief Bob Iger. Unlike Thrive's dedicated permanent-capital fund, Collaborative Fund is investing from its existing early-stage fund and treating the deal as infrastructure rather than a simple asset play. Founder Craig Shapiro described a franchise as "the ultimate consumer product," citing D.C. United's status as an original MLS club, growing American soccer interest ahead of the LA Olympics, and its ownership of Audi Field plus a Loudoun County talent pipeline and rights to a future Baltimore expansion team.