Ashton Jeanty spent last season breaking tackles for the Las Vegas Raiders. Now he's putting his money behind a different kind of play: fixing how athletes run the business side of their careers.
The Raiders running back has joined Nukleus as an investor and a public face of the company ahead of its launch later this month. It's a tech announcement worth watching, not just for sports fans, but for anyone curious about where AI and professional sports are headed next.
Nukleus describes itself as a career operating system for athletes. The pitch is straightforward: bring agents, attorneys, accountants, financial advisors, marketers and trainers onto one platform instead of leaving them scattered across email chains and group texts.
The Problem Nukleus Is Trying to Solve
Professional athletes today are running small businesses whether they realize it or not. An agent negotiates contracts. A lawyer reviews the fine print. A CPA handles taxes. A financial advisor manages long-term wealth. Marketers chase endorsement deals. Someone else handles social media and appearances.
Most of the time, none of these people are talking to each other in real time. Information gets duplicated, delayed or lost entirely.
"The athlete is the nucleus. Everyone around them, from agents and lawyers to brands and advisors, should be operating off the same information, not chasing it down separately every time something changes," said Hector Rivas, founder and CEO of Nukleus. "I've spent years around the business of sports, watching deals, data, and decisions get lost between people who know they'd be better off working together, but never had a way to actually do it. Nukleus is the system that keeps them on the same team."
Why Jeanty Bought In
Jeanty didn't just lend his name to this startup. He put his own money into it.
"Coming into the NFL, you become a CEO, directing a team of agents, advisors, and marketers, whether you're ready or not," Jeanty said. "Nukleus is what finally gets them all on the same page, so I can actually run that team the way it should be run. That's why I invested in it."
That's a notable distinction from the usual celebrity endorsement deal. This is closer to a VC-style bet from someone who's living the exact problem the product is trying to solve.
An AI Marketplace Built Around the Athlete
Beyond basic management software, Nukleus is building an AI marketplace meant to connect athletes and their teams with AI models and technology companies across different parts of their business, from contract analysis to marketing to financial decision support.
Evan Savar, founder of Lightbulb.Ventures and current Chief Revenue Officer of Fuzebox.ai, is leading that side of the company.
"There are incredible AI models and companies being built every day, but most athletes and their teams don't have the time or technical expertise to evaluate all of them," Savar said. "Our opportunity with Nukleus is to bring the best AI technology into one ecosystem and make it useful in the context of how an athlete actually operates their business."
Instead of asking an agent or marketing team to sort through dozens of AI products on their own, Nukleus wants to be the place where those tools show up already built into an athlete's daily workflow. That positions the company as more than a piece of software. It's aiming to be a connector between the sports world and the fast-growing AI economy.
Free for Athletes, Paid for the Pros Around Them
Athletes can join Nukleus at no cost. Agents, CPAs, financial advisors, attorneys, marketing agencies, brand collectives and trainers subscribe to manage their side of the relationship through the same system.
The company is also building a sports-specific AI knowledge layer covering collective bargaining agreements, contract structures and athlete benefits, the kind of dense material that usually requires a specialist to interpret.
Who's Building It
Rivas has a background on both sides of this business. He built and ran a sports agency before leading ThriftBooks to more than $150 million in annual revenue.
The rest of the leadership team:
Eric Ahlstrom serves as CTO, with prior experience at ESPN, Microsoft and Oracle.
Ben Miller is Chief Creative Officer, formerly creative director for University of Washington Football and CAA Sports. Matt Porter is CFO, previously Controller at Disruptive Sports.
A Bigger Shift in the Business of Sports
Athletes today are managing contracts, endorsements, investments, intellectual property, social platforms and personal brands that function like independent businesses. At the same time, AI is reshaping how nearly every industry operates, from finance to marketing to content creation.
Nukleus is betting those two trends are colliding right now, and that an athlete who can coordinate their team and tap into AI tools in one place has a real advantage over one who can't.
With Jeanty's investment behind it, the startup has one of the NFL's rising stars helping introduce that idea to the rest of the league, and to the broader business of sports.
Nukleus opens to the public later this month. Learn more at nukleus.co.
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