Former NFL agent Hector Rivas launches Nukleus platform for athlete operations

NFLPA-certified agent Hector Rivas has launched Nukleus, a shared back-office platform designed to help athletes and the agents, lawyers, accountants and other professionals who manage their careers keep business records in one place.

Rivas said the idea grew from his experience as a sports agent, where he noticed at his former firm, Disruptive Sports, that information is typically spread across spreadsheets, email, document-storage services, and other tools that don’t connect with one another. Rivas said that made it harder for everyone working with an athlete to stay current on contracts, marketing deals and payments.

“The thesis or the idea behind Nukleus is to create one central platform where we can all work from one source of truth,” he said. “That way, the information can be shared between the people running the business of sports for that athlete.”

So far, Nukleus has 50 clients, primarily sports agencies, some of which represent players in the NFL, NBA and WNBA.

Rivas said Nukleus gives users a place to organize athlete profiles and statistics, track prospective clients and deals, and send contracts for electronic signatures. It can also keep the documents, communications, receipts and payment records tied to a deal together in a project file. Rivas said the platform’s AI can read contracts and present key terms in simpler language. The goal, he said, is to give the athlete and the professionals around them access to the same information, rather than maintaining separate records.

The company has 12 employees, including two AI engineers, two mobile engineers and three full-stack engineers. Its leadership team includes Rivas, who previously led ThriftBooks to more than $150M in annual revenue; Chief Technology Officer Eric Ahlstrom, whose experience includes ESPN, Microsoft and Oracle; Chief Creative Officer Ben Miller, formerly of CAA Sports; and Chief Financial Officer Matt Porter, a former controller at Disruptive Sports. The company also has a support team in India.

Raiders RB Ashton Jeanty, who is one of Rivas’ clients, has also joined Nukleus as an investor in the platform.

“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.”

Other investors include Mat McBride, an EVP and CFO at Microsoft; Brent Beardall, president & CEO of WaFd Bank; Dr. Brett J. Kindle of Andrews Institute for Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, who serves on the NFLPA Mackey-White Health and Safety Committee; and Skyler Nelson, former head of private equity at Vulcan Capital, the Paul Allen family office. The investors declined to disclose how much they had invested.

Athletes can use Nukleus for free. Professionals pay $99 per month for the starter plan, designed for individual agents and smaller agencies, with limits on clients, prospects, contacts and storage. The $249-per-month pro plan offers unlimited clients, prospects and contacts, more storage and document capacity, recurring billing and access to an AI Agent Assistant.

Nukleus is also working with Plaid, a financial technology company whose infrastructure lets apps connect to users’ bank accounts to verify information and facilitate payments without sharing bank login credentials. Rivas said Nukleus eventually wants to process payments through the platform. Longer term, he sees potential in using aggregated deal information to develop market benchmarks and explore loans for athletes based on their contracts.