I Attended Alexis Ohanian’s Women’s Runway Invest — See Inside

• I attended Athlos, Alexis Ohanian’s women’s track competition.
• Ohanian’s venture fund, Seven Seven Six, hosted the inaugural race, awarding more than $500,000.
• It was glittering with Tiffany & Co. crowns, big cash prizes, colorful lights and lots of music.

For two weeks running, my Instagram feed has been flooded with ads promoting Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s latest venture, a futuristic all-women track competition.

I removed the first two IG posts, but after a while, I became intrigued. What kind of runway event would help create a multi-millionaire tech founder?

Ohanian calls it Athlos, and his venture fund Seven Seven Six just hosted the inaugural women’s race on Thursday. Competitors received more than $500,000 collectively, with first-place winners winning Tiffany crowns instead of medals or trophies and a cash prize of $60,000. That’s double the money typically given to track athletes, male or female.

The tech founder turned investor is married to Serena Williams, one of the greatest athletes of all time. He is also a founding investor and owner of Angel City FC, a soccer team that just became the most valuable women’s sports team in the world after Disney’s Bob Iger and his wife Willow Bay reached a $250 million deal to become controlling owners.

Of course, Ohanian was at the event with one of his daughters. But if anyone thinks he’s simply investing to improve women’s sport in the future, he made it clear: “It’s never about charity or altruism. It’s about capitalism.”

Since I’ve talked about my personal time and just reported on sports at the Paris Olympics, I wanted to see what Ohanian would have to offer. I attended the first event of its kind at Ichan Stadium in New York, and while it had a few flaws, it was exceptional.