
RISING AMERICA LAUNCHES ITS THIRD FUND
OVERVIEW:
Rising America Fund III is the third fund of this series, with the stellar Rising America Fund I performing in the top 5% of the 1,800+ funds founded in its vintage year. Rising America Funds focus on US Emerging Markets — high-potential, high growth opportunities brought about by rapidly changing demographics or market orientation in the US.
Rising America is one of the most active investors in US Emerging Markets, with twenty-seven (27) portfolio companies, from pre-seed to pre-IPO, across all sectors and geographies in the US. These investments are driving outsized returns and while bringing new products and services to the marketplace.
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Rising America Fund I, vintage 2020, is currently achieving a stunning gross TVPI of 3.20x and an IRR of 39.25%.
Rising America Fund II made is final investment Sept '24, and has a gross TVPI of 1.23x and an IRR of 13.29%.
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27 company investments in the portfolio – Pre-Seed to pre-IPO, across industry, geography
Led by the performance of a pre-seed investment in Canela Media, now valued at 40 times the original investment
56% of the portfolio have step-ups in valuations with nearly half of those at 3x or more, with one unicorn, Maven Clinic.
Industries include HealthTech, FinTech, Media, Enterprise, EdTech, and Beauty, Sports & Lifestyle
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Rising America Partners bring exception track records and investing expertise, with an average 16.4 years investing experience.
Rising America III Fund Partners:
Juliana Garaizar - Fund Partner
Sheila Collins - Fund Partner
Trish Costello - Fund Partner
Rising America III Fund Advisors:
Lorine Pendleton - Advisor
Karen Kerr - Advisor
Daphne Dufresne - Advisor
Rising America is the first venture capital fund to originally be led by 5 African American and Latina/Hispanic Women Partners.
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Proven Investing Thesis focused on an enormous, underserved market with rapidly growing economic power.
Unique deal flow across industry, stage, geography and demography.
World-Class Fund Partners uniquely positioned to provide outsized returns.
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Over 2,000 limited partners who are founders, visionaries and influencers from the US and globally
Deep Diligence Networks and Co-investing with Sequoia, General Catalist, Lux Capital, Ulu Ventures, True Ventures. 4 of 5 partners are Kauffman Fellows
Extensive innovation and organizational networks with Springboard, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Kauffman Fellows, VC Include, Toigo Fellowship and others.
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Portfolia provides the back office, structure and limited partner support so the world's top VCs can focus on investing.
Portfolia's 46 partners across 14 funds lead the industry's best practice, and provide an expert investing network across industry
Portfolia's 2,000 limited partner executive, across 48 states and 20 countries, provide unparalleled knowledge, networks, and expertise.
A RISING AMERICA SUCCESS STORY
Isabel Rafferty’s launch and phenomenal growth of Canela Media is an unparalleled success story. Where we saw an immense opportunity in the growing demand for Spanish language media programming, others saw risk. Where we saw a highly experienced media executive with a huge vision, others saw a founder Who didn’t match their pattern.
With two Spanish-speaking Fund Founders and dozens of Latin American and Spanish-speaking limited partners, we recognized growth, opportunity and returns, where others saw an easy ‘no.’
Our investment is now valued at 40X our initial investment, and Isabel and Canela are just hitting their stride.
Invested pre-seed in 4Q20 - 120 other Venture Capitalists Had Passed.
Today Canela has 76 million unique device users and $110M in revenue
Rising America’s investment is worth 40 times (40x) the original investment
Portfolia Member Investor?
Portfolia Member Investors can directly access the
investment documents via the Member Access portal:
FUND PERFORMANCE
Portfolia Rising America Fund III continues the legacy of extraordinary returns and transformative impact. With its predecessor, Rising America Fund I, achieving a stellar net internal rate of return of 39.25%.
This success is not tied to a single outlier but reflects our ability to identify untapped talent, underrepresented founders, and overlooked markets, creating real, sustainable value. These performance metrics speak to the power of investing in companies driving both exceptional financial results and meaningful impact.

RISING AMERICA I & II FUND PORTFOLIO
This remarkable success stems not from a single company but reflects the strength and execution of a well-founded thesis. The Rising America Fund III plans to continue supporting top early and growth-stage companies by investing in a sector and stage-agnostic manner.
Company Highlights
MoCaFi
FinTech | 8X
Offers a mobile-first banking platform committed to bringing financially underserved communities across the United States into the digital banking realm.
Maven Clinic
Women’s Health | 8X Unicorn
The largest virtual clinic for women's and family health, offering fertility, family building and menopause services in 50 countries in 30+ languages.
Goalsetter
FinTech | 9.7X
Rapidly scaling goal-based savings and gifting platform, made just for kids and powered by those who love them.
Madison Reed
Luxury Consumer
A beauty company and a growing global brand, revolutionizing the way women color their hair using a proprietary ammonia-free formula, and a team of licensed colorists to deliver salon-quality hair color.
YourChoice Therapeutics
Healthcare
The first daily birth control pill for men, non-hormonal and representing the first advance in contraception in 60+ years, now in final trials.
Suma Wealth
FinTech | 5X
A financial wellness brand that inspires, informs, and empowers the Latinx community with the vision to help close the wealth gap in the community.
INVESTMENT DETAILS
Rising America’s companies span across the US, from pre-seed to pre-IPO investment stage, with seed and series A representing the majority of its investments.
The portfolio has a balanced multi-industry focus. Healthcare represents its strongest focus, but with signficant investments in fintech, media, edtech, consumer, beauty and enterprise.
Investments by Industry
The Partners
Rising America Funds are the only venture capital funds to be founded and led by five African American and Hispanic/Latina women partners, all of whom are pioneers in the VC industry with an exceptional average of 16.4 years of investment experience. Their diverse expertise spans multiple industries, all stages of investment, and offering unique insights into underserved markets.
The Fund Partners—Juliana Garaizar, Sheila Collins, Lorine Pendleton, Noramay Cadena, Daphne Dufresne, and Dr. Karen Kerr—are not just investors but also influential thought leaders, drawing from their networks to drive exceptional deal flow. They bring an expert skill-set including sourcing, diligence, deal negotiation, executive recruitment, & strategy. In Rising America Fund III, Partners Dr. Karen Kerr and Daphne Dufresne, with 30 and 25 years of experience respectively, move to Senior Advisors.
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Houston
Investments:
Goalsetter, Health Hero, Kanarys, Maven Clinic, Schola, Scout, Suma WealthPartner: Rising Tide, Consumer
Houston Angel Network
TX Medical Ventures
London Business School; Berkeley
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Washinton, DC/New York
An innovation leader in fintech, health tech, and aging innovation, Sheila has experience at Fortune 100 firms and as a founder of Capital Curator, helping high-growth startups shape the future of finance, healthcare, and economic mobility. She helped launch Small Business Saturday, built a tech accelerator for 500+ AgeTech startups, and integrates financial empathy into her work.
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San Francisco/Bay Area
Created the world’s leading women’s VC investment firm.
Launched the world’s first FemTech Fund, now a model worldwide
Founder and CEO Emeritus of Kauffman Fellows program
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New York
Investments:
Curastory, Goalsetter, Madison Reed, Maven Clinic, MoCaFi, ShearShareChair – Tiger 21
Pipeline Angels
Angel Capital Association Board of Directors
Brown, JD; NYLS
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Chicago/San Francisco
Investments:
Schola, Zero Point Five Therapeutics, Innovare, Rebundle, Mentor Spaces, YourChoice, MoCaFiMD – GE Ventures
Intellectual Ventures
MD Arch Ventures
Univ of Chicago, PhD
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Washington/NYC
Investments:
4D Healthware, Ceek, NasaClip, OralucentMD – GenNx 360 Cap Partners
MD – RLJ Equity Partners
Penn; Harvard Business
INVESTING THESIS: AN ENORMOUS EMERGING MARKETS, WITH GROWING BUYING POWER
The Portfolia Rising America III Fund is build on the successful investment model and thesis of the first two funds and continues to invest directly in early-stage and growth companies in the US for returns and market impact. Rising America invests in exceptional founders focused on US emerging markets.
The fastest growing emerging markets in the US today include: minority majority populations including Latin/Hispanic; new products, such as fintech, edtech, and healthtech, for non-white Americans and Immigrant populations and 3) increasing wealth populations, such as in LGBTQx communities.
Latin, Hispanic and African American markets are among the fastest growing demographics, with rapidly increasing buying power in the US, but are still dramatically underserved in products and services meeting their needs. This is especially pronounced in areas such as healthcare, financial products and services, media and entertainment, enterprise services, and beauty and consumer products. Especially pronounced is healthcare, where health inequity, even when controlling for income, results in greater cost, disease, suffering, and adverse outcomes in pregnancy and delivery.
Buying Power Growth
US Latinx spending power is $3.4T
African American spending power is $1.8T
LGBTQ+ spending power is $1.4T

COMMUNITY & PARTNERSHIPS
Rising America’s sophisticated community of limited partners is a key component to its success, as is its partnerships with research institutes, accelerators, and innovation organizations.
Rising America is highly networked with the venture capital community, and co-invests with the other top venture capital investment firms in the US.
Co- or Follow-on Investing with Sequoia, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Ulu Ventures, True Ventures, A16Z, among others.
4 of 5 Rising America Partners are Kauffman Fellows. The co-founder of Kauffman Fellows is CEO of Portfolia.
2000+ limited partner/members who bring deal-flow, knowledge & expertise
Relationships with National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, AARP, Springboard
DEI with Toigo Fellowship, VC Include, Black Women Who Code, Grace Hopper Institute
Rising America I & II Investments
PORTFOLIA COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Portfolia provides the back office, structure and limited partner support so the world's top VCs can focus on investing, across 14 funds and 14 special purpose vehicle investments.
Portfolia Partners: Its 46 partners across 14 funds lead the venture capital industry's best practice, and provide an expert investing network across industry.
Portfolia Members: Portfolia's 2,000 limited partner executives, across 48 states and 20 countries, provide unparalleled knowledge, networks, and expertise.
Portfolia Model: Portfolia’s proven model — activating the world’s best women venture capitalists in a special partnership to unleash the capital of sophisticated women and minority limited partners, to back the companies we want in the world for returns and impact — shows that exceptional returns can come from radically different models of investing.
Portfolia Investing Experience: Portfolia is based on the knowledge that bringing sophisticated women to the investing table, as members in a transparent and educational investing experience, makes our investing better, our companies stronger and builds a emerging investing ecosystem for the future.

Rising America III Awards, Press, and Events
Rising America Fund III continues to make waves in the venture capital industry, garnering recognition for its exceptional performance, visionary leadership, and impact on emerging markets. From industry accolades to high-profile media coverage and engaging events, this section highlights the milestones and moments that define our commitment to driving returns and innovation.
Explore the stories, awards, and conversations that are shaping the future of venture capital with Rising America III.