The long-running relationship between Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith and Ryan Sweeney, general partner at Bay Area venture capital giant Accel, isn’t hard to pick up on when you speak to the two 40-something tech veterans together.

In a dual interview with the Deseret News, Smith and Sweeney unveiled their ambitious new venture, Halo Experience Co, a technology-infused investment fund aiming to raise $1 billion and one built on years of friendship, shared business vision and deep roots in both tech and sports.

But contrary to some other reporting on the new fund, the Halo founders say it isn’t a sports-centric effort.

“This isn’t a sports fund,” Sweeney said. “It’s a tech fund aiming to leverage the power of sports.”

Smith and Sweeney first connected nearly 15 years ago through Qualtrics, the customer experience software company co-founded by Smith that famously shunned venture money for its first 10 years in business, taking pride in self-financing or “bootstrapping” growth.

But it wasn’t exactly, er, bro at first sight.

In a Deseret News interview last year, Sweeney recalled his failed early attempts to connect with Smith, leaving messages that went unanswered and generally being ignored.

“Qualtrics was a name that kept coming up over and over again from our portfolio companies that were using the product,” Sweeney said. “And everyone had the same report, they’re up to something real. We started calling on Ryan, hoping to take a meeting and get to know him. Over the course of the first year of calling, we really got no response.

“But in our world, that’s a good sign. We were being kept at bay but that just kept the chase alive.”

Smith would eventually return one of those calls from Sweeney and that led to a series of funding rounds for Qualtrics headed by Accel, representing the firm‘s first financial foray involving a business from Utah, an area that was being mostly passed over by the Bay Area titans of tech finance.

Once the Smith-Sweeney alliance was established, however, a series of mega deals soon followed.

In 2018, Qualtrics was acquired by German software behemoth SAP in an $8 billion transaction just days before a planned IPO. A few years later, Qualtrics would make it to the public investment markets via a SAP spinoff, raising over $1.5 billion and riding a $15 billion valuation.

And that was just a few weeks after Smith announced he and his wife Ashley had purchased the Utah Jazz in a deal reportedly worth about $1.7 billion, the first transaction for Smith Entertainment Group, the sports and entertainment firm founded by Ryan and Ashley Smith and backed by a personal investment from Sweeney.

SEG would go on to take a minority stake in the David Blitzer-led purchase of the Major League Soccer franchise Real Salt Lake (recently bought out by LHM) and, later, bring NHL hockey to Utah via acquisition of the Arizona Coyotes.

It’s a shared history that Smith and Sweeney say has given them a rare, front-row seat to the intersection of enterprise technology, live events and consumer behavior.

“We’ve just seen the future of this intersection of sports and tech without delineation — it’s the same,” said Smith. “Do we believe that every tech company on the planet should be in sports? F1, Super Bowl, the Masters — it’s where people are convening ... it’s where business is taking place.”

Halo Experience Co, also branded as HXCO, is a new joint venture for Smith and Sweeney but will operate as a standalone effort, separate from Accel, Qualtrics, Smith Entertainment Group or any SEG-related entities, according to a spokesperson for the fund.

It will, however, enjoy backing and infrastructure support from Accel and is aiming to do more than just chase returns from emerging markets. It’s designed to help founders scale and connect with new verticals by tapping into what Smith calls “the most powerful platform on the planet” — live sports and entertainment.

“Any great tech business should want to access that market,” Sweeney said. “It’s not about riding a trend — it’s about helping great companies penetrate a uniquely high-impact space.”

From digital fan engagement to live event security, AI-powered personalization and more, the duo sees sports as the ideal proving ground for next-generation technologies.

“It’s the only form of live entertainment that matters,” Sweeney said. “It’s where people still get along, regardless of politics. There’s something beautiful in that.”

Both men stressed that while their backgrounds are steeped in tech — Accel made prescient early bets on companies like Facebook, Slack and Spotify and Smith’s Qualtrics was a record-breaking enterprise software exit — they are now uniquely positioned to capitalize on the convergence of tech innovation, media and live events.

“We just look at this from a tech angle,” Smith said. “We’re owners, we’re locked in on the other stuff. We’ve got two of the major four franchises in Utah. It’s only going to get more important.”

Smith pointed out that he and Sweeney have already been making moves in this space with investments in platforms like SeatGeek and SEG’s evolution of the fan experience, including digital ticketing, direct-to-consumer streaming and AI-powered fan engagement, as proof points.

“We’re powering business-to-business-to-consumer,” Smith said. “It’s about platform application.”

One of the outgrowths of the Smith-Sweeney relationship is a shared and avid commitment to Utah. While Smith is a proud native, Sweeney considers himself a de facto Utahn and, in speaking with the Deseret News last fall, said his optimism about the state has only grown since a company named Qualtrics popped up on his radar.

“I’m more bullish on Utah now than I was 15 years ago,” Sweeney said. “As an investor and a person. Impressed by the people, the place, the community. I’d bet on Utah all day long … and I feel like it’s still in its infancy.”

Both men said they have a desire to see the next generation of founders and investors come from Utah and the Halo fund’s mission is as much about building a legacy as it is about scaling emerging tech companies.

“There’s no reason the next great investing franchise can’t be out of Utah,” said Sweeney. “We want to build the next two or three dozen Qualtrics.”

The two noted that they’re getting set to open Halo’s Utah headquarters at a space in The Shops at South Town and are ready to take their shared “don’t blink” approach to deal-making to the next level. (Smith is building the Utah Hockey Club offices and training center at the same location.)

“It’s kind of a pinch-yourself moment,” Smith said. “We’ve been through epic rounds together, through everything — this is just the next one. We’re uniquely positioned because of our background to be a part of every conversation at the intersection of tech, pop culture, payments, live events and streaming.”

And Sweeney completed the thought on why it’s the right time and place for launching the Halo fund.

“We’ll work till we’re 85 or 90,” Sweeney said. ”We enjoy this. We’re good at it. This is what we do.”