Owl Ventures Welcomes NBA Legend Chris Paul as Venture Partner

Paul joins Owl's global platform to support founders building the future of learning and work

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Owl Ventures, the world's largest venture capital firm focused on education and workforce innovation, today announced that NBA legend, entrepreneur, and community leader Chris Paul has joined the firm as Venture Partner.

As Venture Partner, Paul will support founders, convene strategic partners, and bring perspective and relationships that help portfolio companies expand their reach and impact. The role builds on his longstanding focus on mentorship, leadership development, and expanding opportunity across communities, while deepening his work with founders and businesses beyond sports.

With more than $2.2 billion in committed capital, three global offices, and over 100 investments, Owl Ventures backs companies helping people learn, prepare for work, advance in their careers, and build skills throughout life. Owl's portfolio companies collectively reach more than 700 million users globally.

"Education is where real change starts," said Chris Paul. "That can happen in a classroom, through a trade, with a mentor, or through the lessons you learn from family and community. My upbringing was rooted in placing value on work ethic, ownership, and opportunity and how access to those things can change a person's life. Owl shares that same belief in helping build companies that can have real impact and give more people access to the tools and opportunities they need to move forward."

As president of the National Basketball Players Association for eight years, Paul represented players through major business and labor issues, built consensus across the league, and helped advance player empowerment and economic opportunity. That experience directly informs the perspective he brings to founders at Owl.

"Chris Paul has spent his career doing what great point guards do: seeing the floor, recognizing potential, and helping others succeed," said Ian Chiu, Managing Partner of Owl Ventures. "That instinct has always extended beyond basketball. As a leader, entrepreneur, and community builder, Chris has used his platform to expand opportunity and help people move forward. We are thrilled to welcome him to Owl as Venture Partner as we continue backing companies that help people learn, build skills, and reach their potential."

As AI reshapes how people learn, work, and build careers, lifelong learning and the ability to turn new skills into opportunity are becoming essential. We believe the companies defining this next era will pair technology with an even greater emphasis on real-world context, trusted relationships, and human insight.

"From the beginning, Owl Ventures has been built around a simple belief: learning is one of the most powerful drivers of human potential and economic progress," said Tom Costin, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Owl Ventures. "Our approach has always been to bring more than capital to the founders building transformative companies in education and workforce innovation. In a rapidly changing landscape, deep sector insight, relationships, and practical support in reaching the people they serve matter more than ever. Chris adds a powerful new dimension to that work."

About Owl Ventures

Owl Ventures is the world's largest venture capital firm focused on education and workforce innovation. With more than $2.2 billion in committed capital, the firm partners with transformative companies helping people learn, prepare for work, advance in their careers, and build skills throughout life. Owl Ventures leverages its global network, sector expertise, and strategic relationships to help founders scale category-defining companies that expand access, improve outcomes, and create economic opportunity. Owl's portfolio companies collectively serve more than 700 million users worldwide. Learn more at www.owlvc.com.

About Chris Paul

Chris Paul is an NBA legend, entrepreneur, investor, and community leader whose impact extends well beyond basketball. He served eight years as president of the National Basketball Players Association, representing players through major business, labor, and organizational issues during a transformative period for the league. Off the court, Paul has built and invested in businesses across sports, media, and consumer products. For more than two decades, Paul and his family have created opportunities for young people through the Chris Paul Family Foundation. His education work includes establishing the Business of Entertainment, Media and Sports course at several HBCUs with Harvard Business School professor Anita Elberse and creating Club 61, a youth leadership program focused on financial literacy, education and technology, civic responsibility, and leadership development.

Media Contact:
Malvika Bhagwat
malvika@owlvc.com

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Owl Ventures Welcomes NBA Legend Chris Paul as Venture Partner

Parcel Perform becomes Perform.AI for an industry where brands are chosen on how they perform, not how they market.

SINGAPORE and BERLIN and CHICAGO, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Perform.AI today launched the AI Commerce Operating System to do the job end-to-end—from merchants' being found to the parcel being delivered—on one system, and changed its name from Parcel Perform to match this ambition.

Brands now have to build experiences for both the humans who buy, and for the AI agents that support them. The AI agent focuses on finding the best product, at the best price, with the fastest delivery. A brand now sells to a person and to that person's AI—which picks only the brands that keep their promises.

The Perform.AI system is built for this reality, and runs the whole e-commerce journey—AI Commerce Visibility, Checkout, Post-Purchase, and Returns—with Logistics doing the daily work collaborating with shipping partners underneath. Behind it all, AI Decision Intelligence fuels every decision. It reads the data, holds a view on what should happen next, and acts on it, optimizing for gross margin.

With this foundation in place, once an e-commerce business is live on Perform.AI, their teams—marketing, logistics operations, customer service—can connect to Perform.AI data through the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and get answers about their e-commerce operations inside the AI tool they already work in.

"An AI agent deciding which brand to recommend reads what you promised, and checks what you actually delivered. You can see that record before the agent does, and fix what is in it. This is the new world of AI Commerce, and we are proud to help merchants get ready for it," said Dr. Arne Jeroschewski, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Perform.AI.

"Loyalty doesn't move an AI agent. Advertising doesn't move it either. But consistent performance does. We announced AI Commerce Visibility in October 2025, so e-commerce brands can see how AI recommends the product lines they actually sell, not just their brand name, and what AI says about their delivery and returns." said Dr. Jeroschewski.

"For ten years, e-commerce software offered the same deal: buy the tool, do the work yourself," Dr. Jeroschewski said. "Fifteen tabs, fifteen logins, every decision still stitched together by your team. Perform.AI does that work in one system. Your teams just need to focus on the strategic decisions, not on assembling answers."

Echoing that focus on a better way forward, Dana von der Heide, Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer of Perform.AI, shares: "We started as Parcel Perform ten years ago. Performance was always the point: it was the outcome our customers wanted. Parcel was just the unit of work we began with. The ambitious brands we work with expected more from us, we built it, and their performance became our obsession."

"The rebranding follows the change that began inside our company. E-commerce software used to move on roadmaps, but Perform.AI revamped how it scopes, develops, and ships software to match the pace AI commerce moves at. This is the new velocity you can expect from us," said Dr. Jeroschewski. "We are not renaming the company. We are naming what it has become already."

The Perform.AI system runs on more than 100 billion parcel updates a year for thousands of brands, with 1,100+ carrier integrations across 160+ countries. It reads that data and acts on it: catching a delay before a customer emails to ask, picking the cheapest carrier that is most likely to hit a promised date. This is one system where outcomes matter, because the software should create value, not just the people working with it.

ABOUT Perform.AI

Perform.AI is the AI Commerce Operating System for ambitious brands. In agentic commerce, performing is what gets a brand recommended - so Perform.AI runs the delivery promise, the post-order experience and the return as one interconnected system that acts on what needs fixing, with Logistics carrying the daily work of the delivery promise underneath. Founded in 2016 as Parcel Perform, the company became Perform.AI in September 2026.

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Perform.AI Launches AI Commerce Operating System