This VC firm is playing the long game with sports and fitness—and just added a new teammate

When Marcus Stroud met Brett Brewer at the 2024 Kauffman Fellows conference in Hollywood, neither of them knew what would happen next. 

Brewer, a cofounder of MySpace and Los Angeles-based Crosscut Ventures, was immediately struck by Stroud.

“It just came through in an instant,” said Brewer. "This is someone who’s destined to do incredible things, and I want to be a part of it. I want to help, and I want to see it all happen.”

Stroud, who started investment firm Sequence Equity with former Princeton roommate Brandon Allen just two years prior—and already had something to show for it. 

Sequence’s mission was in some sense contrarian amid AI-mania—to invest primarily where technology meets sports, fitness, and human performance. Sequence’s first fund featured early investments in companies like fitness coaching platform Future (which has raised more than $100 million and recently merged Tom Brady’s Autograph), airline revenue management startup Kambr (acquired by Amadeus), strength training app Ladder (which in 2024 raised more than $100 million in funding), and wearables juggernaut Oura, last valued at $5.2 billion. 

Brewer was “blown away” by that first fund’s performance—and he and Stroud had an instant connection. 

Over the next six months, Brewer started working more and more with Stroud and the Sequence team. Ultimately, that meeting in Hollywood led to a turning point for Brewer and the firm—Brewer has now joined Sequence as managing partner, and the firm will now be based in LA, moving from Austin. 

“This next chapter isn’t about AUM or anything like that,” said Stroud, a former Princeton football player, referencing the acronym for assets under management. “It’s about the fact that sports, technology around human performance, it’s only become institutional in the last four or five years. So, how do we use our competitive advantage of having so much sector focus?”

The Sequence team is filled with former athletes and trainers. One Sequence investor, for example, was previously a strength coach for the NBA’s Chicago Bulls. And the firm has leaned on a multi-strategy approach. 

“We have our early stage venture strategy, which has gone really well and continues to do well,” said Stroud. “But we're also going to be raising our private equity fund that focuses on sports teams, sports leagues.”

Spencer Rascoff—a Sequence LP, current Match Group CEO, and cofounder of Zillow—told Fortune via email that he believes Sequence has “built a clear edge in human performance and sports,” adding that the firm’s multi-strategy approach represents “a unique advantage that compounds over time.”

In Brewer’s opinion, he’s joining Sequence at an exceptionally good time for investing early, especially outside AI. 

“Unless you’re living in the pre-seed world, nobody really realizes that valuations are way down, so it’s actually a very good time to invest,” he said. “You’re not overpaying at that stage. That’s why, trust me, this 2025 and 2026 vintage will be incredible for seed and pre-seed funds… Five years from now, when there’s the next Oura, people will say: ‘My God, where did this company come from?’”

See you tomorrow,

Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com