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Say Hello to HXCO, Utah's $1 Billion Sports,Tech, Media and Entertainment Investment Fund Coming to Utah, Courtesy of Ryan Smith and Friends

Say Hello to HXCO, Utah's $1 Billion Sports,Tech, Media and Entertainment Investment Fund Coming to Utah, Courtesy of Ryan Smith and Friends
Logo of the Halo Experience Company screengrabbed from the HXCO website 09 April 2025.

In case you missed it, Ryan Smith, Utah's 46-year-old business wunderkind, is launching a $1 billion investment vehicle focused on the confluence of sports, technology, media and entertainment.

Known officially as Halo Experience Company, its formation was officially declared via the company's first "tweet" on X.com (see @haloxco) and shared nearly simultaneously via retweet on Smith's own account.

As stated in the tweet above, HXCO will

"... invest in high-growth businesses ... (and) provid(e) access to the arenas where attention and adoption scale fastest ...."

HXCO further emphasizes that

"Sustainable growth is no longer derived from capital or connections within traditional networks. (Instead, such growth can only be achieved by) tapping into cultural momentum to break through barriers, define markets, and directly access the customers, partners and people who matter most."

Beyond that one tweet/retweet combo, there is no other official communique from HXCO about its formation or plans for the future.

In fact, the Halo Experience Company website is merely a landing page populated today with white text on a black background featuring

  • The company logo;
  • The city names of Sandy, Utah and Palo Alto, California;
  • The company's internet handle, @haloxco;
  • An email address (info@haloxco.com); and
  • The copyright symbol coupled with the year, 2025.

What Else Do We Know about HXCO?

There are, however, some details that have been released by Smith and his lead partner in HXCO, Ryan Sweeney, a partner in Accel, a 42-year-old venture capital firm with over $9 billion in assets under management (AUM).

{BTW: Accel and Sweeney were the first to invest in Provo, Utah-based Qualtrics, the firm that Smith helped lead to tech and monetary fame.}

Specifically, according to Upstarts (see "This tech founder turned NBA owner just launched a $1 billion fund to connect startups to sports," HXCO

  • Has raised most of a $1 billion fund, and
  • Plans to invest in 20—25 firms,

which would mean an average of $40 million to $50 million invested per portfolio company.

Additional insights about HXCO and its plan come from a number of sports-focused or sports-aligned publishers, such as

To be clear, HXCO is a separate entity from Smith Entertainment Group, the firm that Ryan Smith and his wife, Ashley, formed as the holding company for their ownership holdings in the Utah Jazz, Utah Hockey Club, Real Salt Lake, the Delta Center, and other entities.

But as Smith stated four months ago during a CNBC interview with Carl Quintanilla,


"There's nothing that brings people together like sports."

Seems to me like Smith is continuing to put his money where his mouth is.

And I, for one, cannot wait to learn more about Halo Experience Company.

Publisher's Note

This article/report was originally published and distributed to our Subscribers at approximately 09:15am (MT) on Wednesday, 09 April 2025.

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