Kerry Rupp is a General Partner at True Wealth Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund investing in women-led businesses that improve human and/or environmental health. She is a board director for True Wealth Ventures’ portfolio companies Partum Health, Rosy and RubyWell, and a board observer for Atlantic Sea Farms. She previously served as board director for BrainCheck, Flourish, reHarvest Provisions and VidaFuel.
She has also taught as a nationally-certified instructor for the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program, helping university-based teams to commercialize their science and technology research. She is an active startup coach who is asked to judge at startup competitions nationwide and is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship, innovation and early-stage investing. She has served as a mentor at Capital Factory, on the Advisory Panel of the Texas Health Catalyst program at Dell Medical School, on the Advisory Board at Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs at UT Austin, and on the Founding Steering Committee for Beam, an organization focused on making Austin the best place to be a woman entrepreneur.
Previously, Kerry was CEO at DreamIt, a Top Ten US startup accelerator and early-stage venture fund, where she was directly involved with the launch of over 150 companies. During her 5-year tenure with DreamIt, she grew its programs to five cities, raised a $20M follow-on fund, and initiated the DreamIt Access (minority entrepreneur), DreamIt Athena (female entrepreneur), and DreamIt Health programs.
Before DreamIt, Kerry was herself the founder of an online travel service, Holiday Golightly, which organized unique group travel excursions for women. She has also advised senior executives at Allrecipes.com, ReadersDigest, LexisNexis, Payscale, and Taleo on stategy, business development and marketing. She has held Vice President level positions at AllRecipes.com, Jobster, Classmates.com and LexisNexis. Kerry began her career as a consultant with McKinsey and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).
Kerry holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Biology from Duke University. In addition to her startup ecosystem service, she serves on the board of the Ascension Seton Foundation and on the Innovation Roundtable for the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Dell Medical School. She previously served as Board Chair for the Texas 4000 for Cancer, was a Member of the Austin Area Research Organization (AARO), and served on the Host Committee for the Austin Community Foundation’s Women’s Fund Keyholder event for several years. She is an avid adventurer that has visited over 50 countries and all 50 US states.
For more details, see www.linkedin.com/in/kerryrupp or www.kerryrupp.com
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