David Frankel, Founder Collective

**Nick Chirls** (0:06)
Welcome to Origins, a podcast about the money behind the money. This podcast is created by Notation Capital, a pre-seed venture firm. We invest in amazing technical teams in New York at the infancy of an idea. You can find us on Twitter at Notation Capital. This season is sponsored by our friends at Silicon Valley Bank, a member of the FDIC. SVB is the bank of the world's most innovative companies and their investors, with a dedicated practice for emerging managers. Learn more about Silicon Valley Bank services at svb.com.
David Frankel grew up in South Africa, where he founded Internet Solutions, the largest ISP and private data carrier in Africa. In 2000, David was voted the South African Technology Achiever of the Century by the Financial Mail. In 2009, he co-founded Founder Collective with Eric Paley, one of the most successful seed stage firms in the industry, where they have invested in companies like Uber, Pillpack, Coupon, Seakeak, among others. Along with their partner Micah, they are viewed as some of the most thoughtful and founder-aligned investors in the business today.
David, we are unbelievably excited to have you here in this makeshift studio in Soho today. Thank you for doing this for us.

**David Frankel** (1:38)
Thank you guys. It's such a pleasure to be here on this rainy day in Soho.

**Nick Chirls** (1:42)
Indeed. Thank you. So I watched a video of you recently.
I think it was like the 15 year reunion video of Internet Solutions. It was you and your partners. I found it somehow. I think we've gone around.

**David Frankel** (1:56)
Live sparks.

**Nick Chirls** (1:57)
Yes, yes, it might have been.
So that sounds like a great place to start. Would love to chat about a lot of your career and starting Founder Collective. But tell us about starting Internet Solutions, I think in 94, right?

**David Frankel** (2:10)
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, my wife and I attended what I think anyone who knows would know is the most liberal college in South Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa, called the University of the Valdartis Rund.
And it was, to Malta's times, I started college in 1989 and it was like, it was really the end of apartheid and the birth of a new country. And most people don't know, but more people were killed in those few years than in the preceding decades. It was a tough time. And if you were kind of involved on college campuses, you were being tear gassed and there were riot police around. And the engineers and the commerce students were a little bit off the mainstream, but it was crazy times.
But the timing was insane. In 1991, 92, I had internet access before there was a Netscape. So I knew what the internet was.

**Nick Chirls** (3:16)
And a beer on campus.

**David Frankel** (3:18)
Through the university. Yeah. So the only way you got internet access was something called UniNet, where some of the colleges, universities had put a network together, incredibly low speed. Again, no browser. So Archie and FTP. And I'm an engineering student. And my best friend's brother was a computer science guy. And we could understand each other. My closest friend and I had started a business together at the age of 15, selling stuff at flea markets.
And his brother and I would talk about it. A guy, Ronnie Apteca.
And so there was this very natural kind of thing. I went and got a job straight out of university, actually working as the PA to the guy that started the largest tech company in Africa.

**Nick Chirls** (4:06)
Was there a tech community there?

**David Frankel** (4:08)
Yeah, there was. I mean, there was. But again, that tech was just PCs. Like Microsoft was the most exciting thing. You know, Windows was the most exciting thing.
But yeah, there was a software.

**Nick Chirls** (4:23)
That was a career that people considered in Johannesburg University, particularly in engineering.

**David Frankel** (4:28)
And by the way, IT, yeah, so out of engineering and IT, there was Xerox and there was, you know, so the guy that had Alcatel and Xerox, and he was the biggest manufacturer of Alcatel equipment in the world. And it was a fascinating place to go hang out.
But Ronny actually in October 1993 started, really started IS with about, I don't know, I think it was less than $1,000. It was literally less than $1,000 of capital. And my closest friend, Alon, comes to me in like, and Ronny had come to me, I was his first client. I was literally his first client. I still have the disc that says you hold the world in the palm of your hands.