Sarah Antor : Founding General Partner
Growth
Sarah Antor is the founding General Partner of Helena Capital bringing a wealth of experience along the entire lifecycle of a business. She most recently served as General Counsel and Head of Regulatory for the AI-powered anti-money laundering platform, Hawk: AI. She was also General Counsel of the fintech Payworks ahead of its sale to Visa. In 2018, she was tapped to lead the European investment banking division of Raymond James (NYSE: RFJ) as COO Europe and she served as CEO of the German subsidiary through the end of 2021.
Sarah’s career at the intersection of banking, law, and tech spans three decades, beginning in capital markets at SmithBarney and First Union Securities as a high-yield debt Research Analyst for telecomm and healthcare. In 2003, she joined the Office of South Carolina’s Governor Mark Sanford as Chief Legal Counsel enacting the state Venture Capital Program as a fund of funds and steering economic development with the state’s largest trading partner, Bavaria, Germany. Four years later, Sarah joined BridgehouseLaw serving SME clients in their transatlantic expansion and relocated to Munich. She soon began supporting founders in the burgeoning fintech scene with incorporating, fundraising, scaling or finding potential partnerships and buyers in the U.S.
Sarah holds degrees in economics, organizational behaviour and business from Tulane University, obtained her Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law and has been an Adjunct Professor of both Law at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and Business at the EU Business School in Munich. She is hyper-focused on funding the missing middle for climate tech founders – especially female – and helping them successfully scale their business across the Atlantic to achieve their chosen strategic exit.