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Impact-led infrastructure

Investing in the Infrastructure of Work

Arise Funds is an impact investment firm. We deploy blended capital and operational infrastructure into workforce development and technology companies — building the institutional systems that generate returns and create employment at scale.

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Illustration of infrastructure work

The Investment Thesis

Providing the capital, operational infrastructure, and institutional systems that make early- stage workforce companies investable

Workforce Infrastructure

We don't fund projects. We finance infrastructure.

The global workforce crisis is not a talent problem. It is a systems coordination failure — training programs exist, employer demand exists, and worker motivation exists, but structural disconnects prevent people from accessing dignified, income-generating work at scale. This is true in Lagos. It is equally true in Louisville.

Arise Funds finances the infrastructure that resolves this failure: workforce development and technology companies with employer-integrated models, AI-enabled operations, and capital structures designed to generate returns as employer revenue scales. These are not training programs. They are human capital enterprises.

How We Work

We don't write checks and wait. We deploy capital and operational infrastructure together — because in workforce markets anywhere in the world, one without the other rarely works.

01 — Capital

Structured entry into blended capital vehicles.

We structure and deploy blended capital — combining concessional funding, income-linked financing, and equity — calibrated to the institution's stage and risk profile. Capital is patient, structured around employer pipeline depth, not arbitrary timelines.

02 — Infrastructure

Operational build-out that creates investable companies.

Alongside capital, we second talent directly into portfolio companies to build the institutional infrastructure that larger investors require. HR, governance, compliance, financial controls, and M&E systems — built from the ground up, to institutional standard.

03 — Scale

Transition to institutional capital at scale.

We position portfolio companies for long-term institutional capital — DFIs, development banks, sovereign wealth funds — by building the data, governance, and verified outcome infrastructure they require. We de-risk the entry. They provide the scale.

Where talent meets infrastructure.

From security operations centers to data analytics labs — across Nigeria, Sierra Leone, the United States and beyond — Arise Funds portfolio companies build the environments where real careers begin.

Strategic Partnerships

The work, in practice.

We partner with employer networks and operating companies to build infrastructure that delivers measurable talent outcomes and investment returns.

Arise Funds builds partnerships across technology, cybersecurity, and AI to turn workforce infrastructure into operationally sustainable, investor-ready businesses.

1

Cybersecurity + SOC Operations

Employer-aligned security operations teams built for ongoing threat response and managed services.

2

Software Development + Global Teams

Distributed engineering teams that deliver product, scale operations, and connect talent with enterprise customers.

3

Data Science + AI & Machine Learning

Applied analytics and machine learning capabilities that power decision making across workforce and infrastructure operations.

The ICBM Model

AppICBM is a 7-stage workforce development flywheel — not a training program.

1

Discover

AI-driven aptitude assessment and pathway matching — directing talent correctly before training begins.

2

Prepare

Removing structural barriers to participation — devices, connectivity, financing — before training begins.

3

Train

Competency-based training across five digital economy pathways — building job-ready skills.

4

Certify

Globally recognized certifications that employers trust and that hold their value across borders.

5

Employ

Verified employment placement — into BPO operations, government contracts, and private sector partnerships.

6

Advance

Graduates advance into higher-value roles — analysts, engineers, managers, and entrepreneurs.

7

Reinvest

Graduate repayments and employer revenue fund the next cohort. The system becomes self-sustaining at scale.

First Portfolio Investment

The model, proven.

Arise Funds led, built, and expanded the employer network that anchors ICBM graduates and demonstrates the value of workforce infrastructure at scale.

Key outcomes

250%

Growth since launch

12+

Employer partners

1,200+

Learners onboarded

3x

Average value creation

The Team

The Arise Funds team brings together impact investment strategy, federal systems expertise, and 30+ years of human capital leadership.

Aisha Saaka Lewis

Aisha Saaka Lewis

Chief Executive Officer

Most impact investors come from finance. Aisha Saaka Lewis comes from AI. As a Data & AI Strategist at Accenture Federal Services — where she led analytics transformation for public sector clients including enterprise reporting oversight for PEPFAR — and a management consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, she spent her career applying technology and data to the hardest problems in government and global development.

What she kept seeing was a gap: the infrastructure to connect capital, technology, and workforce development existed in pieces but never as a coherent investment thesis.

LaTonya Blakes

Vice President, Human Resources

When Arise Funds deploys capital into a portfolio company, LaTonya Blakes is the person who goes in to build it. Seconded from Arise Funds to SBTS Group LLC, she leads the HR infrastructure, compliance frameworks, talent systems, and organizational design.

Her career spans more than three decades in human capital leadership, including a decade at Booz Allen Hamilton where she directed HR for the National Defense University.

LaTonya

Laura C. Rudert

Global Strategy & Delivery Leader

Laura C. Rudert has spent more than 20 years deploying over $4 billion across climate, infrastructure, and development programs in 30+ countries. She led a $525M compact in Côte d'Ivoire and helped design Power Africa.

At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, she served as Deputy Director of Strategy & Management. An HKS MPP alumna — she has operated on both sides of the capital table.

Laura

Get in Touch

Ready to deploy capital into workforce infrastructure?

Arise Funds is actively building partnerships with impact investors, development finance institutions, and government bodies. If that describes you we respond to every serious inquiry personally.

Or reach us directly

info@arisefunds.com