Lorine Pendelton

Lorine Pendleton is a seasoned VC, advisor and attorney with extensive experience in the legal, technology and entertainment industries. She was named by Mergers & Acquisitions as the 2021 Top 25 Most Influential Women in Mid-Market M&A, by Worth as one of the “16 Financial Powerhouses,” Marie Claire as one of the “Most 50 Connected Women in America – Star Dealmaker,” Brown Brothers Harriman’s Women & Wealth as “21 Women to Watch in 2021, Business Insider as one of the “22 Female Angel Investors Every Startup Founder Should Know,” Crunchbase as “39 Black Women Investors Inspiring a New Generation of Investors,” Medium as one of the “200 Women of Color to Follow on Twitter,” and Black Enterprise as one of the “20 Angel Investors You Should Know.”

Lorine launched her investing career a decade ago. Initially as an angel investor and now VC. Lorine is the Founder and Managing Partner of a new fund launching in February 2023. She is the Lead Investment Partner at Portfolia’s Rising America Fund I & II, which invests in companies with founders of color, women, LGBTQI+ or companies with products or services addressing those markets. Her fund has made 25+ investments to date including notable investments such as Maven Health ($1.3B valued women’s health company), Madison Reed (revolutionizing hair color), Canela Media (Latinx streaming service) and MoCaFi (digital bank for the under- and unbanked). Her Fund I has an unrealized net IRR of 52% which puts it in the highest echelon of all venture capital funds vintage year 2020. She is an angel investor in Oura Ring (sleep and fitness tracker), Hire an Esquire (on demand legal tech) and Traklight (legal tech business risk evaluator). She is a former Board Member of the Angel Capital Association and a former Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Brown University’s Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship. She was recently appointed to serve on the President’s Advisory Council for Entrepreneurship at Brown University. She is a Special Committee Member of the University of Buffalo Foundation Endowment Investment Committee and and a Member of the Investment Committee for the New York State’s Venture Fund. Additionally, she is a Board Member at StartOut, a non-profit champion for LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs and researcher of the economic impact of LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs.

She is a graduate of Brown University (BA – Economics) and New York Law School (JD).