Claire England
Having cultivated 20 years of operations, strategy, and governance experience in startup investing, entrepreneur ecosystems, and social impact, Claire England is a seasoned advisor and investor. She serves as a Partner in Portfolia’s Food & AgTech Fund, where she leads seed to pre-IPO deals, and in Portfolia’s fully invested FemTech Fund, the nation’s first venture capital fund to invest solely in women’s health and wellness. She’s also a Kauffman Fellow, a leading innovation post-graduate program and global network of 800+ values-based VCs and LPs.
Claire grew a Texas LP group of family offices and individual accredited investors into a large, nationally recognized early stage investing community; under her leadership, LPs deployed $75M into 95 new startups and dozens of portfolio companies in five years, resulting in an ROI far exceeding VC return averages. She also directed a large-scale startup and investor conference that was pivotal to evolving Austin’s entrepreneur ecosystem into what it is today. Her passion for entrepreneurship developed when she joined a social media services startup as its first full-time employee. Additionally, she spent the first decade of her career working in charitable nonprofits.
Claire has extensive professional public speaking experience; she’s led workshops, moderated and spoken on panels, judged startup pitch competitions, and given keynote addresses for innovation conferences throughout the U.S. and internationally. She’s taught university undergraduate and postgraduate business school classes as a guest lecturer in Texas and Arkansas, and she serves on St. Edward’s University’s Business School Board of Advisors. She’s volunteered on numerous advisory committees for civic and investing organizations, such as the Angel Capital Association, Austin Chamber of Commerce, Startup America, and World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers.
Kauffman Fellows honored Claire with the 2018 Kauffman Fellows Leadership Award, and the Austin Business Journal recognized her startup community accomplishments with a 2013 Profiles in Power Finalist Award. She is a Dean’s List and Cum Laude graduate of Texas State University with a BA in Mass Communication – Public Relations and a minor in Music – Cello and Vocal Performance, where she was inducted into Kappa Tau Alpha National Honor Society.
