Claire England

A seasoned investor and executive, Claire England is Investment Partner with GPG Ventures, a Texas-based venture capital firm with more than 100 portfolio companies. GPG invests in startups nationally, from seed to Series B, primarily in the healthcare sector with select investments in B2B technologies. The firm is built on more than 60 years of operational and financial experience with an extensive syndicate investor network and offices in Dallas, Houston, and Austin.

Claire led seed to pre-IPO startup investments at Portfolia, where she's a partner in the Food & AgTech Fund and in the fully invested FemTech Fund, the nation’s first VC fund to invest solely in women’s health and wellness. She's a Kauffman Fellow, a leading innovation post-graduate program and global network of 880+ values-based VCs and LPs, where she remains active in alumni groups. She's also a partner in an impact investing advisory firm, LOHAS.

Previously, Claire grew a Texas LP network, Central Texas Angel Network, into a nationally recognized early stage investing community with 200 individual and family office investors and the #1 ranking in the U.S. Under her leadership, LPs deployed $75M into 95 new startups and dozens of portfolio companies in five years, while far exceeding VC return averages.

Prior to that, she directed a large-scale founder and investor conference that was pivotal to evolving Austin’s entrepreneur ecosystem into what it is today. She developed her passion for entrepreneurship as the first full-time employee of a social media services startup. Before startups, she spent a decade leading marketing, communications, and fundraising in the nonprofit sector.

Claire has extensive public speaking experience, is a skilled panel moderator, and has taught university undergraduate and post-graduate business school classes as a guest lecturer. She graduated college with honors and Dean's List recognition and was a national journalism honor society inductee.

She serves on St. Edward’s University’s Business School Board of Advisors and mentors founders at accelerators, including Capital Factory and Techstars. She's volunteered on numerous advisory committees for organizations such as the Angel Capital Association, Austin Chamber of Commerce, Startup America, World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers, and more. Claire’s work has been recognized with Kauffman Fellows’ Leadership Award and Austin Business Journal’s Profiles in Power Finalist Award.