About Us | Startup Tucson

Welcome to RAIN

The Rising Arizona Investor Network (RAIN) is an initiative of Startup Tucson designed to help individuals learn more about how to invest and support Southern Arizona entrepreneurs and companies using emerging investment tools. By providing education on emerging investment trends and sharing best practices to support diverse founders, the program's goal is to build a local and diverse investor pipeline to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Southern Arizona. The program is designed for current investors or those brand-new to the concept of business investment.

Mentors & Team

Partners

FAQ

VISION

To build a strong, sustainable, pipeline of emerging, active, and diverse investors, adept at utilizing an array of traditional and non-traditional funding tools to channel capital to founders of all backgrounds across the Southern Arizona entrepreneurial ecosystem.

MISSION

RAIN is committed to bridging the capital gap for startups in Southern Arizona by recruiting and training potential and active investors from diverse backgrounds and educating the investor community of Southern Arizona on forward-looking capital raising mechanisms, including equity crowdfunding, to support access to capital for young and diverse founders in our community.

Mentors & TEAM

Andrew Moore
Bluestone Venture Partners

Andrew More is a Director at BlueStone Venture Partners. At BlueStone, Andrew is primarily responsible for leading diligence activities on prospective investments in addition to managing various portfolio and internal fund activities.

Andrew was the recipient of The M&A Advisor's Emerging Leader Award and has been recognized by the Global M&A Network as one of America's Rising Stars in the Dealmaker category.

Before joining BlueStone, Andrew was an Investment Fellow at the UVA LVG Seed Fund in Charlottesville, Virginia where he performed diligence on early-stage life sciences startups seeking Seed and Series A funding.

Danny Knee
Community Investment Corporation

Danny is the Executive Director of Community Investment Corporation
(CIC), a nonprofit organization that works to increase access to the
economy through homeownership, education, and entrepreneurship.
Under his leadership, CIC has been recognized three years in a row by the Tucson Metro Chamber at their Copper Cactus Awards as the most impactful small nonprofit organization in 2020 and 2022 and as the region’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion champion in 2021. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Danny also has an MBA from University of Arizona and a master’s degree in City & Regional Planning from Rutgers University.

Danny focuses on equity gaps in our economy and the enormous
opportunity costs of sidelining innovation that can be attributed to
documented market failures and bias in our capital access systems. As co-founder with his wife, Cecily, a web development company that
exclusively serves nonprofits (Single Focus Web), he also has experience as an entrepreneur and small business owner.

Tony Wilkins
Standing Oak Ventures

Tony Wilkins is a private investor focused on supporting portfolio C-
suite teams and related interests by providing a broad perspective from experience in a variety of industries to help them make better decisions, particularly when navigating new or unfamiliar terrain.

He spent six years as a relationship executive at BNY Mellon
responsible for corporate, government, and non- profit custody clients
his responsibilities included providing strategic consultation, fee
negotiation, and resolving operational and compliance issues. He was a member of BNY Mellon’s Impact affiliate network for employees of color and participates in the company’s DiverseTech initiative to attract, recruit and retain technologists of color.

Liz Pocock

Startup Tucson

Liz Pocock is the CEO of Startup Tucson and the TENWEST Impact Festival and has helped grow Startup to serve over 3,500 entrepreneurs a year, receiving national recognition for building inclusive ecosystems and funding support for its programming from federal entities like EDA and USDA as well as local and national foundations and government.

Liz received her J.D. from the University of Arizona and now teaches entrepreneurship for students within the College of Agriculture and Eller College of Management. Prior to joining Startup, Liz was an Attorney at the National Law Center where she implemented international legal commercial reform and training projects for the State Department,
USAID and the World Bank. Outside of Startup, Liz is a trained mediator, Vice-President of the Downtown Tucson Partnership Board and Secretary of the Tucson City of Gastronomy Board in addition to several other roles on advisory committees for groups like the Tucson Convention Center Commission and Tech Launch Arizona.

She was a Tucson 40 under 40 recipient in 2019, 2020 Tucson Women of
Influence Rising Star Winner and recognized in the 2021 list of NextGen Leaders by BizTucson.

Keneshia Raymond

Startup Tucson

Keneshia (she/her) is the Director of Programs and Access to Capital at Startup Tucson. For 13+ years, she has provided education through her current company Blissful Creatives. In 2020, Keneshia completed the Women's Entrepreneurship Program through Cornell University. Responding to the gap in the market Keneshia spends a lot of time disrupting what has become the traditional way of funding and access to capital.

Over the last two years, she has worked to challenge the systems that have been put in place to keep people of color stagnant, by creating on-ramps and new programs to create opportunities. Keneshia is also a fellow of Common Future's Entrepreneur Policy Incubator, Through this incubator, Keneshia plans to illuminate why solutions like land trusts are essential in lieu of broken government programs. HUD reforms, specifically, are essential to Keneshia's community. There is immense opportunity for greater partnerships between leaders like Keneshia and agency leadership to solve for shared problems."

Partners