LA Tech Week | Sweat Equity: The Intersection of Sports, Tech, and Capital

Join Mayer Brown, Musa Capital, 726 Capital, A2X Foundry and Ballin AI during LA Tech Week for Sweat Equity: The Intersection of Sports, Tech, and Capital, an exclusive gathering bringing together leaders across the sports, technology, and investment ecosystems.

As athletes increasingly become founders, investors, and owners, the lines between sports, technology, and capital continue to blur. This discussion will explore how innovation, entrepreneurship, and investment are reshaping the business of sports, from emerging technologies transforming athlete performance and fan engagement to the capital fueling the next generation of sports ventures.

Featuring investors, founders, operators, and industry leaders at the forefront of these trends, Sweat Equity offers a unique opportunity to connect with the people driving the convergence of sports, technology, and finance.

Tuesday, October 13, 2026
5:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Gravitas
435 N. Camden Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Space is limited. Advance registration is required.

---

Featured Speakers:

Stephanie Hurst

Partner – VC/Tech, Mayer Brown | Moderator

Stephanie Hurst is a VC/Tech Partner at Mayer Brown, where she advises emerging and high-growth companies, venture and corporate venture investors, family offices, and global businesses on venture financings, strategic investments, M&A and other transformative transactions. Her practice focuses on technology and innovation-driven sectors, including AI and emerging technology, sports and entertainment, media, deep tech, and climate tech.

Stephanie works closely with founders and investors across the company lifecycle and has particular experience advising corporations and their venture arms on CVC and strategic investment programs. Her practice is also highly international, including significant experience across the US–Asia corridor.

Stephanie has guest lectured on venture capital, cross-border M&A and international business transactions at Stanford Graduate School of Business and USC Gould School of Law. She has been recognized as a “Top 100” lawyer and an “Attorney to Watch” by the Los Angeles Business Journal and as a “Firm Attorney Visionary” by LA Times B2B Publishing.

Marques Anderson

Founder, A2X Foundry | Former NFL Player

Marques Anderson is an entrepreneur, futurist, former NFL player and Founder of A2X Foundry, an athlete ownership ecosystem designed to help athletes translate earning power and influence into long-term ownership, equity and enterprise value.

Marques, a Cyborg Anthropologist, works at the intersection of AI, culture, human performance and emerging technology. His work has taken him across more than 80 countries and spans responsible AI, venture building, innovation, education and the future of human-machine collaboration.

Marques is also the Founder of the World Education Foundation, a UCLA alumnus and an EY Global Luminary. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he played in the NFL for the Green Bay Packers, Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos and San Francisco 49ers.

Allen Smith

Founder & Managing Partner, Musa Capital | Former NFL Player

Allen Smith is the Founder and Managing Partner of Musa Capital, an early-stage venture firm investing in vertical AI and enterprise software, and the creator of Musa Labs, an operator education platform serving a community of more than 16,000 members.

A Stanford graduate whose career has spanned the NFL, Microsoft and venture capital, Allen brings an operator’s perspective to investing in the next generation of AI-native companies. His investment thesis centers on “agentic execution”—the use of AI to run real-world workflows—and Musa itself operates using governed AI agents.

Through Musa Labs and a Microsoft-sponsored certification program, Allen also works with entrepreneurs and emerging operators to translate advances in AI into practical company-building and execution.

Monica Pool Knox

Founder & Managing Partner, 726 Capital

Monica Pool Knox is the Founder and Managing Partner of 726 Capital, where she leads a $100 million venture fund investing at the intersection of technology, entertainment, healthcare and the future of work across the United States, Brazil and Africa.

Before entering venture capital, Monica spent more than 25 years building and leading organizations across some of the world’s most influential technology, media and consumer companies. She has served as EVP and Chief People Officer of two publicly traded global technology companies and held senior leadership roles at Microsoft, Sony, Twitter, PepsiCo, CBS and The Walt Disney Company.

Monica currently serves as a board director for Swedish Health System, a $3 billion healthcare system with more than 12,000 employees in the Pacific Northwest, and as an angel investor and advisor to companies across health tech, HR tech and financial services. She is also a fund advisor to Act One Ventures and SemperVirens Ventures and serves on the University of California’s Economic Development Council.

Monica holds a BA in Communications from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. She brings a distinctive combination of investment, operating, governance and human-capital experience to building and scaling companies.

Nyla Pollard

Co-Founder & CEO, Ballin AI | Former Division I Athlete

Nyla Pollard is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ballin AI, an athlete-founded, investor-backed sports intelligence company helping collegiate and professional teams scout talent and build high-performing organizations.

A former Division I basketball player and human resources executive, Nyla has translated her experience in elite athletics and talent strategy into a technology platform focused on some of the most consequential decisions in sports—from talent identification and player development to roster construction. Ballin AI works with universities nationwide, professional teams globally, and athletes at every level.

At the intersection of sports, technology and entrepreneurship, Nyla brings the perspective of an athlete-turned-founder who is building and scaling a market-adopted company using technology and data to help shape how teams identify talent and build winning organizations.

André Farr

Chairman & CEO, Executive Member Group | Founder, Black Sports Agents Association

André Farr is an entrepreneur, sports executive and connector whose career spans more than three decades across business, sports, entertainment, technology, philanthropy and community impact. A UCLA graduate and former football student-athlete, André began his career as a sports agent, where he represented professional athletes and built a reputation for bringing together people, ideas, resources and opportunities across the sports and business communities.

Recognizing the need for greater representation, access and opportunity throughout the sports industry, André founded the Black Sports Agents Association and later served as President and CEO of House of Blues Sports, further expanding his work at the intersection of sports, entertainment, culture and commerce.

Today, André is Chairman and CEO of the Executive Member Group, a private executive network designed to foster business opportunities, strategic partnerships and meaningful collaboration among accomplished executives, entrepreneurs, investors and influential leaders. Through the Juneteenth Exchange, he also convenes entrepreneurs, executives, investors, innovators and community leaders around entrepreneurship, innovation, economic empowerment and generational progress.

Across these platforms, André has built his career around connecting people to people, ideas to resources, and opportunities to impact—creating relationships and partnerships across industries that extend well beyond the traditional boundaries of sports.