David Frankel co-founded and scaled one of Africa's largest internet service providers before becoming a venture capital investor at Founder Collective, bringing an unusual emerging-market operator background that shapes his strong preference for capital-efficient founders who can build with very little funding. He's known for being anti-thematic despite backing major AI companies, explicitly avoiding hot sectors once they become widely declared trends, and instead focusing on bottom-up opportunities driven by individual founders and insights. David Frankel co-founded and scaled one of Africa's largest internet service providers before becoming a venture capital investor at Founder Collective, bringing an unusual emerging-market operator background that shapes his strong preference for capital-efficient founders who can build with very little funding. He's known for being anti-thematic despite backing major AI companies, explicitly avoiding hot sectors once they become widely declared trends, and instead focusing on bottom-up opportunities driven by individual founders and insights.