Vancouver Rise FC (W)

Vancouver Whitecaps FC, a club with a long history in Vancouver, first organized an amateur women's team that played twelve seasons in the USL W-League between 2001 and 2012. The team enjoyed consistent success, regularly topping the league's western conference, and winning two USLW titles in 2004 and 2006. The establishment of a professional women's league in the United States led to difficulties in retaining players however, and the Whitecaps ultimately folded the team. A Canada Soccer REX academy for women's soccer operated by the Whitecaps was later set up in 2015, with explorations into entering the National Women's Soccer League as an expansion franchise being undertaken in 2017 and 2018.

Unsuccessful negotiations with the NWSL, an expansion of the academy, and an entry into the semi-professional League1 British Columbia in 2022, provided an impetus for the Whitecaps to help establish a professional women's league in Canada as a way to retain elite female players trained in the academy. Greg Kerfoot, the Whitecaps' co-owner, also sought to prioritize equity between the organization's men's and women's programs by offering its female players a professional pathway. In December 2022, the Whitecaps and Calgary Foothills FC acquired the first two licences to run clubs in the Northern Super League, then tentatively known as Project Eight – a league they helped foster through the Whitecaps' general manager of its women's programs, Stephanie Labbé. Labbé and Sinead King were the new club's first two executive hires, and primarily directed the club's development through its formative years; which coincided with the retirement of Burnaby native Christine Sinclair from football in 2023–24, giving Sinclair an opportunity to acquire a minority ownership in the club during her final season of play. Its name, the "Vancouver Rise", and its branding was unveiled at an event celebrating the club's launch on 26 August 2024, hosted at the D/6 Bar & Lounge in Parq Vancouver.