002 How to be a better ally, with angel investor David Fogel
Episode Title: How to be a better ally, with angel investor David FogelEpisode Description: In this episode of The Idea Junkies Podcast, host Laura Richards sits down with David Fogel, a venture capitalist who is rewriting the rules of investment through his groundbreaking work with Alma Angels.David offers a refreshing perspective on allyship - especially as a straight, white venture capitalist! He talks about challenging the traditional narrative around funding for women entrepreneurs, and offers practical ideas for anyone who wants to be a better ally. Through Alma Angels, David (along with two female co-founders) is actively trying to creating change, with a huge mission to generate £1 trillion in women-led wealth by 2050.The conversation covers systemic barriers in the tech and investment ecosystem, the unconscious biases that plague venture capital, and explors how seemingly neutral decision-making processes can perpetuate inequality. David shares candid insights from his own journey, demonstrating how allies can meaningfully support underrepresented founders without falling into performative activism.Whether you're an entrepreneur, investor, or simply someone interested in creating meaningful social change, this conversation offers actionable insights into building a more equitable business landscape.What We Cover:* The systemic challenges women face in venture capital and entrepreneurship* David's journey from traditional venture capitalist, to ally and changemaker* Practical approaches to creating inclusive investment ecosystems* The concept of 'social business 3.0' – where impact is embedded in the revenue model* Strategies for amplifying underrepresented voices in tech and investment* How Alma Angels has invested in over 200 startups with female founders (and why they aren’t done yet)Key Insights:* Only 1.7-2% of venture capital funding goes to female-founded companies (still!)* Alma Angels has supported startups that have raised close to £300 million in funding (wow!)* The importance of creating diverse investment pools rather than enforcing quotas* How affinity bias impacts investment decisions at both conscious and unconscious levelsLinks and Resources:* Find out more about Alma Angels here.* You can connect with David Fogel on LinkedIn.* Recommended reading: "Invisible Women" by Caroline Criado PerezIf you enjoyed this episode, we’d love for you to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone you know would love to listen too.Produced by: Laura RichardsStudio: Flamingo Heights Podcast StudioNB: Occasionally we share affiliate links which means we may make a small commission on books, resources or products we share. Everything we share has been mentioned organically in the podcast episode, so you know it’s an actual recommendation!Episode 002 - Transcript🎵 Music 🎵Laura: Welcome to the Idea Junkies Podcast, where we dive into the ideas and the incredible people behind them that are changing the world. I'm your host, Laura Richards. Get ready to be inspired by the innovators, visionaries, and disruptors who are pushing boundaries across business, science, technology, sports, spirituality, politics, and more.In this episode, I sit down with David Fogel, an experienced venture capitalist, startup advisor, and the former Chief Commercial Officer of the tech-for-good platform WeFarm. David is also the co-founder of Alma Angels, a community with a bold mission to generate $1 trillion in women-led wealth by 2050.This episode is a candid conversation about allyship, from David's perspective as, in his own words, a straight white man. We discuss the systemic barriers women face in entrepreneurship, the persistent biases in funding decisions, and why women's voices are often ignored by the very people who need to hear them the most.We also discuss the groundbreaking work of Alma Angels—from offering practical support, like childcare at events, to empowering a global network of angel investors. David's advice for aspiring allies is simple yet powerful: take action, amplify underrepresented voices, and embrace the discomfort of learning. If you've ever wondered how to be a better ally or how to address inequalities in startup funding and beyond, this conversation is packed with actionable insights and inspiration.Hi David, thank you so much for joining us on the Idea Junkies Podcast. It's great to have you here.David: Thank you for having me, Laura. Really excited to be here.Laura: Amazing. And we've got some quite meaty topics, I think, to dive into today. But just before we really get into the weeds of talking about allyship, representation, and systemic challenges around funding and technology, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up where you are now?David: Cool. It may take me a while because I'm old!Hi, my name is David, and I’m 45. I started my career in Israel, building FinTech B2B. At that time, it was the financial industry—basically taking and building software products for banks, insurance companies, profit, and pension funds. I grew the team to about 60 employees and then moved into venture, where I’ve spent about 12 years.I started as an associate in a small B2B fund, and then I moved into buy-side and sell-side roles with conglomerates. I spent about three years working with huge companies that make tens of billions in revenue, helping them learn and build a strategy to engage with early-stage startups. That role was a great segue when I found an opportunity with Telefónica in the UK, leading early-stage venture and managing their accelerator.I spent about three years doing that, building and supporting a portfolio of about 140 startups. Those startups ended up raising about $300 million in follow-on funding, which was a great experience. From there, I started my own fund with four other partners. We raised £150 million to invest in early-stage startups in the UK as a generalist fund. I spent four years doing that but eventually realised that my partners and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on how to move forward.I also realised that I missed “doing stuff.” When you build a venture firm, most of your work is analysing and investing in companies that do things, but you’re not doing much yourself. So, I decided to step aside and joined a startup as Chief Commercial Officer and later CEO. We scaled that startup to 150 employees across 10 different countries and 3.5 million users. Unfortunately, in 2022, when the economy turned, our lead investor in a funding round suddenly dropped out. We had the dubious pleasure of learning how to close down a company of that size and scale.Since then, my day-to-day work has been advising funds and startup founders on everything from commercial product strategy to fundraising. I’m also one of the co-founders of Alma Angels. We started Alma about four and a half years ago, while I was still a partner in the fund. Alma’s mission is to generate $1 trillion in women-led wealth by 2050.We see women-led wealth from both sides of the table—either as angels who invest and take equity in companies or as founders of companies with at least one female founder holding double-digit equity ownership. Our goal is to support business growth so that equity creates future wealth. And that’s it!Laura: I am really excited to find out more about what you’re doing with Alma Angels, but I want to touch on a couple of other things first. As an outsider, what I’ve always admired about the public view of your career is the opportunities you’ve taken and created. It feels like there’s this thread running through them, where you’re doing something a little bit different a lot of the time. Maybe not so much in the early days of B2B FinTech, but certainly more recently with Accelerated Digital Ventures—that was the UK’s first patient capital fund—and then with WeFarm, which was Tech for Good on a global scale. And now, of course, with Alma Angels. Does that feel fair? Has that been a conscious decision on your part?David: Definitely conscious. I think when you look at decisions in your career, the thread you build over time in the narrative makes a lot more sense in hindsight than it does day-to-day. I’d say the day-to-day felt much more hectic, but I eventually got to a position where I was privileged enough to have options and could choose what I wanted. What I realised is that I want to work on a mission I care about—something that can actually make a difference. I want to focus my time and energy on something that can scale and create impact.Over the years, I’ve developed a personal belief that impact and commercial success don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Most people think of it as an either/or choice—commercial or impact. But I believe there’s a middle ground, which I call "social business 3.0," where impact is embedded in the revenue engine. So, the more money a business makes, the bigger its impact. That was true with Accelerated Digital Ventures, it was true with WeFarm, and it’s true with Alma Angels.For me, it’s about building systemic change. It’s about aligning the mission, the decisions in the business itself, and the revenue model in a way that works together. That’s definitely been clearer in the last decade of my career because I’ve had the optionality to look around and say, “This is where I want to focus my time, energy, and resources.” It’s what matters to me, and if it works globally, it will deliver an amazing return for me financially as well.Laura: There have been lots of different trends and approaches over the years—people trying to brand impact, like “purpose-driven businesses” or “Tech for Good.” But this feels like more than that. It seems like you’ve developed a personal thesis: you don’t have to sacrifice doing well commercially to make an impact.David: Definitely. The challenge is that it’s not applicable to everything. There’s room for philanthropy and charity, especially where the infrastructure doesn’t exist to allow for commercial solutions. In those cases, philanthropy can be the right approach. But if you want to create sustainable change, philanthropy alone isn’t enough.Philanthropy often acts as a crutch rather than a solution. It can disappear when one person changes their mind, or when their heirs decide to focus on something else. But if you create a system where people benefit from using the products or services, and it’s sustainable without being dependent on one person or company, that’s how you build something that can create long-term systemic change.Laura: That makes a lot of sense. And it feels like Alma Angels aligns closely with that philosophy. Is that fair to say?David: Yes, I think so. Alma is very much built on that principle. When we looked at the challenges in venture funding, most of them aren’t coming from a malicious place. They stem from the way people naturally connect. Early-stage investing is very relationship-driven. People invest in those they feel a connection with, which often means individuals who look, sound, and think like them.This isn’t about someone saying, “I don’t like women founders.” It’s about subconscious affinity bias. If you’re an early-stage investor and you meet five founders, and one of them went to the same school as you, you’re more likely to connect with them and give them the benefit of the doubt—even if their idea sounds a bit crazy. That’s how humans are wired.The solution isn’t to fight human nature. It’s to increase the diversity of the investor pool. If we have more diverse investors, they will connect with a broader range of founders. At Alma Angels, our mission is to create a global community of 10,000 angels who care about this mission, with 75% of them being women. Today, out of roughly 450 angels in Alma, about 330 are women.These women will naturally connect with founders who look like them. Again, it’s not about malice—it’s about nature. And yes, there is misogyny and sexual harassment in the system. I’ve heard horrible stories from female founders about fundraising experiences. But addressing those specific issues doesn’t necessarily move the needle on funding. It might discourage bad behaviour, but it won’t encourage investment.Our thesis at Alma is that the way to create systemic change is to build a community that scales. Instead of creating one fund or syndicate where my co-founder Roxanne and I choose which deals to back, we empower a community of angels to find and support the best startups they connect with.If we do this globally, we can invest in 1,000 female-led startups every year. By default, that changes the system. It increases the number of female-founded businesses going to VCs, and instead of 50 deals a year, they’re suddenly seeing 500. And because we fundamentally believe that women tend to be better business leaders on average, the numbers will speak for themselves over time.Laura: I think that’s so powerful. From my perspective, I got my break working for a VC firm 10 years ago. I very quickly became interested in things like gender lens investing and the gender gap in terms of VC funding. That statistic—hovering somewhere between 1.7% and 2% of all VC funding going to female-founded companies—has been stagnant for over a decade, probably much longer.It feels like so many of the conversations in the space revolve around the challenges, the biases, and the barriers. The problem with only focusing on those is that it becomes very difficult to bring people with you. If I’m sitting here saying, “More money should go to female founders,” it can feel like I’m attacking male investors, accusing them of doing something wrong.What I love about your approach is that you seem to sidestep all of that and instead say, “Okay, we know affinity bias exists, so let’s create a wider pool of investors who can connect with diverse founders.” It feels like a very productive way to address the issue.David: Yes, absolutely. And you’re spot on. I think there’s a perception that many people hold about the way investments are made. The truth is that affinity bias plays a huge role, and it’s not inherently malicious. It’s just the way humans are wired.One thing I want to clarify is that I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t tackle the bad behaviour in the system—misogyny, sexual harassment, or any other forms of discrimination. But addressing those issues doesn’t necessarily result in more funding for female founders. It might discourage bad actors, but it doesn’t tackle the root issue, which is increasing investment in underrepresented groups.What Alma Angels is doing is about taking a scalable approach. We don’t need to rely on quotas or try to push people into situations where they feel attacked. Instead, we’re building a community of angels who naturally connect with underrepresented founders.Laura: That makes so much sense. But I do have to address something here. I’ve invited you, a man, to come on to a podcast to talk about allyship with female founders. I’m sure some listeners might wonder, “Why didn’t Laura invite Roxanne or another female founder instead?”From my perspective, the fact that you look and sound like many of the male founders and investors who may not yet have this awareness is incredibly powerful. You’re in a unique position to reach people who might not otherwise engage with these conversations. Is this something you’re aware of or have thought about?David: Absolutely, and I think it’s a valid point. I’m one of several co-founders of Alma Angels. When we started, it was me, Ella, Dipali, Christine, and Roxanne. I often jokingly call myself the “token white guy” because, let’s face it, you sometimes need one.At first, I wasn’t looking to take on a spokesperson role. I’ve built my reputation fairly well in this ecosystem, and I wasn’t trying to take the spotlight. But over time, I realised the impact I could have. I started hearing from female founders and investors saying, “It’s so refreshing to see a middle-aged white guy speaking up about this. It shows we’re not alone in the room.”There’s something powerful about hearing the same arguments, but from someone who doesn’t look like the usual advocates. It lands differently, especially when it comes from someone with my background—a middle-aged white guy who has been a VC and a startup operator.I’ve come to see it as a privilege. My voice can contribute to this mission in a way that complements what others are doing. But it’s not about me; it’s about changing the system and showing what’s possible.Laura: That’s really insightful. I want to pivot now to some of the practical things you’re doing at Alma Angels. Recently, we’ve seen examples from the tech sector where funding for women hasn’t been allocated as promised. There was the Y Combinator conference incident, where a woman was asked to move to a different room because she had her baby with her.What I find inspiring about Alma is how you’ve embraced practical approaches to make your events and community as inclusive as possible. Could you share some of those approaches?David: Definitely. One of the key things we recognised early on is that a lot of events are designed with the assumption that the attendee is a man who has support at home with childcare.One of the first things we did was to make it clear that it’s okay to bring your kids to our events. We partnered with a portfolio company, CocoRio, that provides childcare services at events. They set up spaces where attendees could leave their kids in a safe and engaging environment, allowing them to focus on networking and participating in the event.It’s a small change, but the impact has been huge. At our Alma Summit in June, we had five pregnant women attend, two founders with babies under one year old, and several others with toddlers. It was amazing to see how the community came together to support them. Angels helped carry food for founders juggling their babies, and no one batted an eye.Laura: That’s incredible. And hats off to you, because as someone who’s organised events, I know how difficult it can be to find venues willing to accommodate those kinds of setups.David: It’s definitely challenging, but it’s also a mindset shift. A lot of things in the business world were designed with assumptions about the audience. Those assumptions often exclude people. One of the best books I’ve read that articulates this is Invisible Women. It helped me frame these issues in a way that’s practical and accessible.For example, when Apple launched their first watch, it didn’t work properly for people with darker skin tones because the team hadn’t considered that. It wasn’t malice—it was a lack of diversity in the design and testing teams. Similarly, when colour film for cameras was first developed, the "standard" for colour balancing was based on white skin tones. As a result, for decades, photographs of Black and brown people didn’t come out properly. These weren’t malicious decisions, but they were still problematic.It’s the same with events. The average event assumes the attendees have no caregiving responsibilities. So, we proactively changed that by offering childcare. We also reconsider the timing of events. Not everything has to be on a Thursday evening. Early evening or breakfast events can be more accessible, and we’ve seen how small changes like these can make a huge difference.Laura: That’s such a great example of systemic change—recognising the assumptions baked into the system and actively working to challenge them.David: Exactly. And it’s not just about childcare. It’s about creating spaces where people feel comfortable. At the Alma Summit, we decided not to record any of the sessions. We leaned into that limitation and used it as an opportunity to create a safe space where people could have real, candid conversations without worrying about being on camera. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive because it encouraged open dialogue.Laura: That’s such a good example of turning a limitation into a strength. I want to ask now about the bigger picture. Looking ahead, what do you think are the biggest challenges when it comes to addressing funding inequalities and systemic barriers for underrepresented groups?David: One of the biggest challenges right now is the backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion work. In the US, there’s been a lot of noise about "anti-woke" movements. It’s leading to situations where people throw the baby out with the bathwater. DEI initiatives are being dismissed as performative, and budgets for this work are being cut in tough economic times.But this isn’t just a trend; it’s part of a broader cycle. Economies and societies go through phases, and we’re in a pendulum swing right now. While the current environment might feel more challenging, the mission doesn’t change. We need to find better ways to communicate the value of inclusion without antagonising people.Laura: That’s so important—finding ways to bring people into the conversation instead of pushing them away.David: Exactly. One of the biggest hurdles is the perception of privilege. When people hear the word "privilege," they often think it diminishes their hard work. But privilege doesn’t mean you haven’t worked hard; it means you didn’t face certain systemic barriers while doing that work.We need to have open conversations about these nuances. A lot of people shut down because they feel attacked, so the challenge is finding ways to have these conversations constructively.Laura: That’s such a good point. And it’s worth noting that we’ve been talking predominantly about women as an underrepresented group in this conversation, but the same principles apply across all aspects of intersectionality, don’t they?David: Absolutely. Intersectionality is embedded in everything we’re talking about. No one is just one thing—I’m not just a white man, and you’re not just a white woman. But while intersectionality is important, I also believe in focus.You can care about a lot of things, but you can’t effectively act on all of them. Impact requires time and resources, and those are limited. For me, Alma Angels is where I’ve chosen to focus because it’s where I believe I can make the most difference.Laura: That makes sense. So, for men listening who want to be better allies but aren’t sure where to start—what would your advice be?David: First, accept that you’ll make mistakes. Allyship is a learning process. As long as you come from a good place and are willing to learn, apologise, and improve, you’re already on the right track.Second, amplify underrepresented voices. It’s such a simple thing to do. If you see a woman or someone from an underrepresented group posting about something important, share it. Add a comment about why it matters to you, or even just reshare it without commentary.When I started as a partner in ADV, one of the first things I did was refuse to sit on panels with no diversity. When people told me, “We don’t know any women VCs,” I created a list of 40 women in VC and offered to introduce them. Little actions like that make a difference.Laura: That’s great advice.David: And lastly, find other allies to connect with. Allyship can feel isolating sometimes, especially if you're one of the only voices speaking up in certain spaces. But there are always others out there. Reach out to people you see championing these issues, ask questions, and learn from their experiences.It’s also important to focus your time and energy on what you’re passionate about. No one can fix every problem, but everyone can make an impact if they choose a mission they care about and act on it. Alma Angels is a good example of that. In four and a half years, we’ve created a community that has invested in over 200 startups with at least one female founder. Those startups have gone on to raise close to $300 million in follow-on funding.Laura: That’s incredible. And what’s particularly inspiring is how intentional you’ve been about building a community and creating systemic change, rather than just focusing on one-off fixes.David: That’s the thing—if you focus on systemic change, the ripple effects are enormous. For instance, Alma isn’t just about angel investing. We’ve had about 14 Alma members go on to raise their own funds and another 20 join VC firms after starting as Alma Angels. By creating opportunities for individuals, we’re also changing the broader system.But systemic change takes time, and it’s important to focus. You can’t spread yourself too thin. If you want to make a real difference, you have to commit your time and resources to something specific.Laura: That brings us nicely to my final question. If there’s one idea or takeaway you want listeners to leave with, what would it be?David: Start acting. Stop overthinking it. Just caring isn’t enough—you have to take action.Laura: Take action. That’s such a powerful message to end on. Thank you so much for joining me, David. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation, and it’s been amazing to learn more about the work you’re doing with Alma Angels. We’ll add links in the show notes to the organisations you’ve mentioned and the resources we’ve discussed today.David: It was my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me, Laura. I hope my answers weren’t too long!Laura: The editors will let me know if they were!Laura: Today’s episode of The Idea Junkies Podcast was produced by me, Laura Richards, with the help of the amazing team at Flamingo Heights Podcast Studio. Thank you for listening to today’s episode.If you like what you heard, please hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We’d also love for you to leave a review so other people can find our show and hear about the ideas that are changing the world.If you’ve been inspired by what you heard today, why not join our community of Idea Junkies over on Substack, where you’ll also find all the show notes and links discussed in this episode.We hope you’ll join us again for another episode of The Idea Junkies Podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ideajunkies.substack.com
