David Frankel is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Founder Collective, a seed-stage VC fund whose mission is to build the most aligned fund for founders at the seed stage. An immigrant who got his entrepreneurial start selling airbrushes at a South African swap meet, David went on to co-found Internet Solutions, Africa's first and largest ISP, which he sold to NTT. In 2000, he was voted the South African Technology Achiever of the Century.

Post a Fulbright Foreign Scholarship and an MBA with distinction from Harvard, David moved back to the USA. He provided the first capital for numerous companies, including Olo (NYSE: OLO), where he worked closely with founder Noah Glass through its IPO and acquisition in 2025 by Thoma Bravo. At Founder Collective, he is the lead investor in Coupang (NYSE: CPNG), SeatGeek, PillPack (acquired by Amazon), Shield AI, and more recently, Suno.  Founder Collective's broader portfolio includes Uber (NYSE: UBER) and The Trade Desk (NYSE: TTD). David was ranked #2 on the 2025 Midas Seed List and has appeared on the Midas List of the world's best venture capital investors seven times.

David is also the co-founder of NextUp, a youth employment accelerator in South Africa, which recently partnered with educator Taddy Blecher to launch the Maharishi NextUp Institute of Technology (MNIT) in Johannesburg, training underprivileged youth in AI, robotics, and cybersecurity.

On his investment approach: "Relationships come first. We don't chase themes. VC's have a terrible track record at predicting the future & everyone chases the same themes anyway. It's all about backing people who can execute. "Who" beats "What" at FC every day of the week!"