Claire England
Claire is a cum laude graduate of Texas State University with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and public relations, and a minor in music (cello and vocal performance), where she was inducted into Kappa Tau Alpha National Honor Society.
In her spare time, Claire enjoys international travel, triathlon, reading, cello, travel photography, creative arts, and exploring farmer’s markets. She lives with her husband and their pug in Austin.
A seasoned investor with executive experience, Claire England is Investment Partner with GPG Ventures, a healthcare venture capital firm that invests nationally in biotech, digital health, medtech, and B2B consumer health. With offices in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, GPG was established in 2011, has 105+ portfolio companies, and is built on decades of deep healthcare and investing expertise. GPG opens venture-ready opportunities in the massive U.S. healthcare market — almost 20% of GDP or $4.9T annually — to individuals and family offices, who invest alongside the firm’s partners.
Claire serves as Board Observer at Affineon Health; Operating Partner for an impact investing advisory firm, LOHAS; and Advisory Board member to the Munday School of Business at St. Edward’s University. She’s also a Kauffman Fellow, a top postgraduate innovation program and network of almost 1,000 VCs and LPs worldwide.
Prior to GPG Ventures, she was a partner in two Portfolia funds, Food & AgTech and FemTech, where she led four deals and served on the investment committee for 20 more. Before Portfolia, she developed Central Texas Angel Network into the #1 most active angel group in the U.S. and an international angel investing model with 200 individual and family office investors. In her five years of leadership, investors deployed $75M into 95 companies, with a 9x average return-on-investment, far exceeding VC return averages.
Previously, she directed a large-scale founder and investor conference, RISE, 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’s a skilled panelist and moderator and has spoken extensively at national and international innovation conferences. She’s also taught undergraduate and postgraduate business school classes as a guest lecturer at several universities. Her work has been recognized with the 2018 Kauffman Fellows Leadership Award and Austin Business Journal’s 2013 Women in Business Finalist Award.
A member of Class 21, Claire served her fellowship at Central Texas Angel Network under the mentorship of then CTAN board member Rosa McCormick (Class 18). She served as mentor to Class 23 member Andrew Vranjes.