David Frankel | |
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Born | Johannesburg, South Africa |
Residence | Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, US |
Alma mater | Harvard University, University of the Witwatersrand |
Occupation | Managing Partner of Founder Collective |
Years active | 1993–present |
David Frankel is Managing Partner and co-founder of Founder Collective, a seed-stage venture capital fund with offices in San Francisco and Boston. The fund was initially anchored together with Eric Paley (founder of Brontes Technologies). Founder Collective counts Uber, Makerbot and Cruise amongst its seed stage portfolio companies. Frankel is the lead investor for Founder Collective in companies such as Buzzfeed, Coupang, Seatgeek. and Pillpack. He previously provided the first term sheet or capital for companies such as OPower (NYSE: OPWR) and Volaris (NYSE: VLRS).
Frankel was co-founder & CEO of Internet Solutions (IS), the largest ISP and private data carrier in Africa. Frankel served as an Executive Director on the board of London Listed Dimension Data plc which was subsequently acquired by NTT Japan for $3.2bn. David has served on the board of directors of Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) since 2007.
In 2000, Frankel was voted the South African Technology Achiever of the Century, by the Financial Mail. The World Economic Forum later selected him for the GLT (Global Leader of Tomorrow) program in Davos, Switzerland. Frankel is an Electrical Engineer (Wits) and post selection for the Fulbright Scholarship Program earned an MBA, with distinction, from Harvard Business School. David is currently an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the HBS Rock Center and he serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations including The Rashi School in Boston, Foundation 2000, the King David Schools Foundation and Endeavor South Africa.
Among his investments are: