Barbara Clarke

Barbara Clarke is a lead investor in Portfolia’s Rising Tide Fund, Portfolia Enterprise Fund, and Portfolia’s FirstStep Fund. She led Rising Tide investments in RenovoRX and co-led investments in Tenacity and Poshly. Barbara is a prolific early-stage investor in Boston and the Northeast, exclusively backing women-led, POC-, and LGBTQ-led companies, and was also an early investor in Portfolia Inc.

Barbara is a founding member of Astia Angels and serves on Astia’s national investment board. She was an early Pipeline Fellow and brings a background as an economist and entrepreneur with more than a decade of corporate and nonprofit executive experience, including senior leadership roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG.

Barbara holds a BA in Quantitative Economics from Tufts University and an MA in International Economics and Finance from Brandeis University’s Lemberg International Business School. She currently serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees for Schools for Children, a network of independent schools serving students from preschool through high school. Her prior board leadership includes serving as President of Tufts University’s Alumni Association, National Director of the National Alliance for Grieving Children, and CFO of Cradles to Crayons.

Barbara is known as an insightful and generous mentor to Portfolia’s new investors. She is particularly valued for her perceptive evaluation of founding teams and her ability to support founders’ growth alongside their companies.

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