Fellowship Spotlight: Rising Capital

“We scale what others miss,” is a common refrain for Mfoniso Ekong and Lauren Usher, co-founders and co-GPs of Rising Capital, a partnership with gener8tor, a startup accelerator and VC firm focused on non-traditional founders who are often overlooked in venture. 

Over the course of their 11 combined years working at gener8tor, Ekong and Usher have been able to invest in a lot of great people. But as Ekong explains, “There have been a lot of folks who slipped through the cracks because there wasn’t a natural program or fund to fit into. Rising Capital gives us the opportunity to capitalize strong and talented founders we’ve coached or mentored but weren’t able to fund at gener8tor.”

Creating the Conditions for Success

Rising Capital is a partnership between Mfoniso, Lauren, and gener8tor aimed at supporting promising seed stage alumni of gener8tor accelerator programs. “We’re focused on founders who are coming out of our accelerators ready for that next step,” Usher says. Seeking out and finding overlooked talent is both motivating and fulfilling for Usher and her co-founder. “For us, it’s about funding folks that have years or decades of experiencing the problem they have a solution for, the teams that come around them and complement them, and the innovative ways that they decide to position their solutions,” 

Ekong explains. “All we have to do is match them with the right mix of investors, customers and mentors and help show them how to best position themselves for success.” Rising Capital reduces the time and space between promising solutions and their ability to go to market and scale. They’re focused on creating the conditions that will nurture sustainable growth.

“When I first joined the venture capital industry,” Ekong reflects, “one statistic that stood out was the lack of funding going to non-traditional founders. And in all my years working in the industry, it hasn’t shifted. If anything, it went down, and we’re trying to flip the script on that.” Both he and Usher see themselves as uniquely situated to put a dent in what they see as this massive problem. They’ve put themselves in the position to help others see the value in investing in the companies they know have promise and potential. 

The Birth of Rising Capital

Usher’s first charge at gener8tor was to launch a “pre-accelerator” to invest in very nascent startups looking to generate a double or triple bottom line. After spending a year focusing hyperlocally within Wisconsin, Usher’s team brought on Ekong to broaden the program’s geographic focus to nationwide. As time passed and their work evolved, Ekong ended up running a fintech-focused accelerator within the company while Usher moved through a variety of operational roles and into her current position overseeing a team that’s running gener8tor investment accelerators across the country. “We branched off but were still working together,” Usher recounts, “and we kept thinking about the experience we had working with those pre-accelerator impact founders.” 

They both wanted to be able to facilitate a next step for the people they encountered during that time. “There were so many high quality and impactful founders in that pool,” Usher says, “and we were like, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a fund that could support them?’” Though they knew they had a promising idea, they also knew they needed to build stronger track records before actualizing it. They took the time to do that and then approached gener8tor leadership to pitch their vision, and Rising Capital was born. 

Leveraging Impressive Track Records

Both Ekong and Usher have established themselves as forces to be reckoned with in the world of VC. “For us, the opportunity to launch a fund in partnership with gener8tor emerged because the leadership at gener8tor identified us in particular as the right people,” Ekong says. The humble co-founders are not prone to bragging, but they’ve both accomplished enough to be able to brag if they wanted to. Ekong has a portfolio of 30 startups that gener8tor managed funds have invested in over five years time who’ve gone on to raise over $20M in follow on financing. These companies span fintech, insurtech, digital health, data analytics, and more, and he maintains close relationships with them. 

Usher, on the other hand, has risen in ranks at gener8tor, where she quickly moved into leadership, first heading the company’s pre-accelerator program and team, and now at the helm of the investment accelerator team. Both have taken on a fair share of other responsibilities, including spearheading gener8tor’s corporate social responsibility efforts. The pair’s deep roots at gener8tor allow them to also leverage the company’s strong track record of 1,600 portfolio companies with $2.4B in follow-on fundraising and 55 exits over the past 12 years. 

The Rising Capital Differentiators

Ekong spends a hefty portion of his day in direct strategic coaching conversations with founders, and quotes one he recently spoke to, who said: “It’s more than just the capital,” while expressing appreciation for initial key hires that Rising Capital supported his company to make. Ekong and Usher pride themselves on being “a company’s best investor” by insulating checks with more expansive support. “Gener8tor accelerator programs typically write  catalytic $100K checks for founders and  provide follow-on checks through various funds,” Usher shares, “but we also work intentionally with the founders to help them grow and scale as well. It’s not like, ‘Here’s the money. Good luck,’” she says. Instead, Usher and Ekong provide much more. 

They match founders with mentors, make beneficial introductions, share guidance on how to approach conversations with investors, and offer insights into what to expect during due diligence. “We expand folks’ networks and help them build their networks,” Ekong adds. “A lot of early-stage – and especially overlooked or underrepresented – founders don’t have direct access to high-level executives.” By connecting with Rising Capital, these founders are tapped into an expansive corporate innovation network with 30+ large companies from different industries – Microsoft, LG, Meta and Securian Financial, to name a few.

“We’re also operating in markets that tend to be underserved in VC,” Usher says. “Mfoniso and I are both in Wisconsin and we see founders in other communities like ours who, being outside of San Francisco and New York, are not the same companies going through the pipeline in a lot of other investors’ deal flow.” Because of this, Ekong points out, they’re often looking at less competitive deals, which supports them in generating better economics for their investors. Their early stage focus also serves to provide access to deals that others aren’t encountering. “We see founders and the startups they’re creating so early that a lot of other people just haven’t seen them yet,” Usher adds.

Shared Curiosity and Compassion

Ekong and Usher have a particular experience in common. Both are children of immigrants – Ekong’s parents from Nigeria and Usher’s from Belize. “My parents are entrepreneurs, so I’ve always had that around me,” Usher shares. She underscores that her parents’ emphasis on hard work and education played a big part in landing her where she is today, and also in her earning a PhD in psychology along the way. Throughout her career, she’s maintained a throughline of curiosity about people and why and how they make decisions. “Entrepreneurship and venture is such a ripe place to observe behavior,” she says with enthusiasm, “and such a different way to uncover talent and help be part of the push forward.”

After finishing up undergrad, Ekong spent a few years in a family office working to expand STEM and entrepreneurial access. This first foray into mission-oriented impact work sparked something in him as he “pulled his head out of the books” after focusing intently on pre-med studies. He made a brief pit stop working as a researcher, but ultimately felt himself called back to more direct impact work. He recalls an anecdote that’s stayed with him from his time working in the family office, of a young man at a particularly tough school who was not on track to go to college, but shifted course as a result of a program that Ekong’s office funded for him. “I knew I wanted to do more of that,” he states clearly. “At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, he found his way to gener8tor’s Impact Conference, which is what put him on the path he’s currently on, nearly six years later.”

Seeing the Impact They’re Creating

Back in 2019, Ekong and Usher hosted an event at Sherman Phoenix in Milwaukee, focused on the criminal legal system and issues around recidivism. “We were trying to get people in the same room who had different perspectives on the issue,” Usher explains, “We were hoping that people could form a startup in the end, but it was an experiment.” 

They brought together a diverse group with a range of experiences with the system – legal professionals, formerly incarcerated people, impacted family members, and others – to network and think together. Ultimately, multiple companies were built as a result of the event, one of them being The Way Out, a future of work platform that continues to grow, in part thanks to capital they’ve been able to raise with support from Rising Capital. “Eli and Ruben, the co-founders, met that night,” Usher says. “That’s our piece – creating the environment for these things to grow from.”

The Value of Participating in the VC Include Fellowship

“It’s fun to be on the other side of an accelerator,” Usher says with a smile. “We’re taking notes on what pieces we can learn from.” She elevates the intentional nature of the content, the quality of guest speakers, and the candid nature of the space as elements that stand out. “It is very open,” she adds. “It genuinely feels like you can ask what might be considered a dumb question or something you feel like you ‘should know’ already.” She also expresses appreciation for the caliber of individuals in the cohort and the intimacy that comes from being part of a small group with a level of shared experience. 

Ekong weighs in, saying, “Our biggest challenge was getting in front of and converting institutional LPs and that’s a primary part of the VC Include program – not just the connecting, but also coaching us through the way to go about that process, which has been helpful.” He points to the fact that many of the guest speakers have been institutional LPs or funds that have raised from institutional LPs, lending invaluable insights into the process and how to best optimize strategy.

Lauren and Mfoniso exemplify VC Include’s values. Their commitment to community, to expanding access to capital, and to accelerating ideas that will have an impact on society is commendable. Their warmth and commitment to supporting each other and their cohort was palpable from our first conversation. We’re excited to see how these rising stars behind Rising Capital expand their impact over the years.