30-year-old NFL athlete Jaylon Smith is investing his earnings to ensure long-term wealth.
Smith is guided as a client by Michael Ledo’s RISE Family Office, formerly RISE Sports Advisors, a multi-family Dallas-based financial services firm with nearly $300 million in assets under management, according to information shared with AFROTECH™.
RISE Family Office taps into its institutional investor network to source private company deals, creating more structured investment opportunities for athletes and high-net-worth entrepreneurs. For Smith, this led him to invest $100,000 in the Series C round of the health tech company Oura during his final run with the Dallas Cowboys in 2021.
“The deal was brought to me by RISE,” Smith told AFROTECH™. “And it was a thing where I was very intrigued with the health and wellness space, particularly around different devices or tools to better help gather data. Oura was one of the deals that was brought to me, and I decided to invest.”
Smith has since exited Oura around the time of its Series E round, per Sportico. He made a 10x return on his investment as of the deal’s closing in February, per information shared with AFROTECH™. Oura was valued at $11 billion as of November 2025, after selling 5.5 million smart rings, according to Sportico.
The return will be invested strategically by RISE Family Office to help Smith achieve financial freedom and grow generational wealth.
“It was a wonderful opportunity to exit early and get a 10x and be able to reallocate it the right way,” Smith said.
His investment portfolio includes JINYA Ramen Bar, which won Best Restaurant in South Bend, Indiana, and has generated strong revenue. Smith is a franchisee of the venture, with his first location opening near his former college campus, the University of Notre Dame, as AFROTECH™ previously told you. He plans to franchise between eight and 10 locations across the state. His overarching goal is to have over 350 restaurants across multiple concepts, inspired by the late former athlete-turned-billionaire, Junior Bridgeman.
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Additional private investments in the health tech space will likely trickle into his portfolio, he said.
He told AFROTECH™ that his overall portfolio is 30-35% diversified with 21 private investments. Sportico reports Smith is likely to see a 10x return from his stake in EOS Worldwide.
“What made Jaylon unique is that he built quality assets. He just didn’t passively invest into the markets. He was a lot more aggressive when it came to private investments,” Ledo mentioned.
Smith also owns a financial services firm, Cycle Management Group, and an eyewear brand, CEV Collection, which is stocked in over 500 Sam’s Clubs in the U.S., and scored a partnership with Howard University in 2025 to co-create a glasses frame.
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Smith is also in the midst of building a $5 million insurance company alongside his brother and in partnership with Globe Life, according to information shared with AFROTECH™.
“A lot of athletes have what they call a slow bleed where they’ve had so much lifestyle inflation throughout their career, and then when that money stops, it’s just a slow bleed. And so what we’re at with Jaylon is not only sustaining the lifestyle he’s experienced, but having the surplus to keep investing and to keep building,” Ledo said.
