Nitin Rai
Managing Director @ Elevate Capital
Portland, United States
Nitin Rai is a seed investor at Elevate Capital in Portland focused on Software and Information Technology. Nitin is an entrepreneur. He came to Oregon as a Software Engineer at Mentor Graphics after having worked for three software startups in Silicon Valley and Seattle. Nitin utilized his background to raise $20 million in angel and venture capital for First Insight and in 2010 exited his investors via buy-back of their shares. He is currentlyPresident and CEO of First Insight Corporation, a Hillsboro, Oregon based software company which he founded in 1994. First Insight leads the eye-care industry in electronic medical records, practice management and e-commerce products for independent optometrists and ophthalmologists with its flagship product − MaximEyes.Since 2007 Nitin has been an active angel investor, mentor and is a founding charter member and President of the Board of TiE Oregon. In this role he has grown TiE to a full-fledged angel investment group with a successful mentoring program and launched several education and incubator programs. Nitin is currently serving as TiE Angels Oregon’s Chair and in this role has led the group to over $5 million in investments in 28 startups. Nitin holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Dalhousie University (Halifax, Canada).
- Total investments:
- 27
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 70%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Nitin Rai invests in
Stages Nitin Rai invests in
Countries Nitin Rai invests in
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
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Investment Focus
Industry
- Software 6 (22%)
- Information Technology 5 (19%)
- Health Care 4 (15%)
- SaaS 3 (11%)
- Internet 3 (11%)
Stage
- Seed 19 (70%)
- Pre-Seed 2 (7%)
- Series A 2 (7%)
- Funding Round 1 (4%)
- Debt Financing 1 (4%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| MedZERO is the world's first mobile lending platform dedicated to serving the healthcare industry. Designed to meet a growing problem, medZERO helps people pay for ever-increasing portions of their healthcare costs. An employer benefit, medZERO enables employees to pay out-of-pocket medical bills without incurring high credit card interest or401k loan fees.MedZERO is a mobile application that provides employees of participating businesses immediate access to funds to pay medical costs with zero interest and zero fees. Payments are made with a pre-paid virtual MasterCard and repayment is completed over 12 months directly from payroll deductions.MedZERO was developed through a joint venture between Portland, Oregon-based Sortis Holdings (SOHI) and Kansas City, Missouri-based Mobile Capital Group. Sortis Holdings’ wholly owned subsidiary Sortis Financial provides a national loan servicing platform and Mobile Capital Group brings a payments technology that supports millions of lending transactions used by some of the nation’s largest payroll providers. | Venture - Series Unknown / Jul 02, 2026 | ||
| PortalSphere is a B2B eCommerce platform built for Shopify stores, transforming them into wholesale portals with personalized pricing and intelligent upsells. Developed by B2B Plus, Inc. in Portland, OR, and serves brands in beauty, health, apparel, food, and home goods categories. | $250K / Seed / Jan 12, 2026 | ||
| CleanHaus provides an AI-powered operations platform tailored for short-term rental hosts and cleaners, automating scheduling, task management, inventory tracking, and payments to prevent missed turnovers and streamline collaboration. | $250K / Seed / Jan 12, 2026 | ||
| StrateSea Technology is a startup specializing in AI/ML software for hydrographic and maritime applications. The company develops FeatureLab, a no-code platform that enables domain experts to build, train, and deploy custom computer vision models for analyzing sonar, multibeam, and geospatial data without requiring data science expertise. | $350K / Seed / Jan 12, 2026 | ||
| Overwatch Imaging designs and manufactures imaging systems with custom onboard AI software for piloted aircraft and drones. The precision imaging systems help organizations quickly find what they are looking for from the air, so they can focus less on the search and more on the best response. Specific uses of Overwatch Imaging systems includeautomated land surveillance, maritime patrol and search, and linear infrastructure inspection. Overwatch Imaging was founded in 2016 by UAS and airborne imaging experts and is based in Hood River, Oregon. | $500K / Jan 12, 2026 | ||
| Osheru is a cutting-edge, startup company making medical devices.With the Ziplyft from Osheru, eyelid surgery is now faster and simpler for both the patient and the surgeon, revolutionizing the field. For lid surgery, the Ziplyft makes minimally invasive procedures easier. | $250K / Seed / Jan 12, 2026 | ||
| JourneyTrack is a cloud-based (SaaS) enterprise collaboration suite to understand, track, and prioritize the Customer Experience. JourneyTrack helps to create living, data-driven maps to ensure the inclusive design and benchmark customer experience. | $1.5M / Seed / Oct 13, 2023 | ||
| Rock Paper Coin is a new platform revolutionizing the way the wedding industry accepts contracts and payments. Rock Paper Coin is a need-based solution focusing primarily on payments and contracts. Approximately 350,000 wedding businesses make up the $74 billion dollar industry in the US ($300 billion globally). It was founded in 2019 andheadquartered in Portland, Oregon. | $2.3M / Seed / Oct 25, 2022 | ||
| CarpeDM app is an exclusive member-only dating community created for singles seeking meaningful relationships with professional Black women. | $1.1M / Pre-Seed / Sep 28, 2022 | ||
| Bacon develops a gig-work app that connects established businesses to local gig workers. The app allows users to choose one another based on ratings, reviews, and performance. Businesses can post one or multiple shifts on the Bacon app while workers can apply for these shifts and work when it fits their schedule. | $8.9M / Series A / Aug 04, 2022 | ||
| See all 27 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About Elevate Capital
Elevate Capital is a seed and early-stage investment firm with a primary focus in the Pacific Northwest and investing in under-represented founders. Elevate proudly maintains a 50/50 male/female founder split among its invested portfolio and has 100% of its investments where at least one co-founder is from a minority group (East Indian,Veterans, East Asian, African American, Latino, and etc.).
Elevate Capital Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Jill Nelson
Executirve Partner
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Nitin Rai
Managing Director
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FAQ
What does Nitin Rai invest in?
Nitin Rai invests primarily in Software, Information Technology and Health Care startups, most often at Seed and Pre-Seed stage. Most of the 27 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
How do I contact Nitin Rai?
Public channels for Nitin Rai include LinkedIn. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
When did Nitin Rai last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Nitin Rai closed in Jul 2026. Shizune tracks 27 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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