Rafaella Fontes came to venture through an unusual path, moving from work as a sommelier and U.S. brand strategist for Champagne Bollinger into investing focused on aerospace, defense, and national security, and along the way she helped build venture processes from scratch, including a pipeline of more than 3,000 companies and screening frameworks that supported 18 investments. She has also co-led the first student community for Latinas in venture capital and taken on investor community roles in Los Angeles and in defense and space, while at Fulcrum she treats her work on national security, energy resilience, and American industrial competitiveness as a personal mission as much as a job.