Join Angel Academe founder Sarah Turner, deal lead Verity Baldry and SyndicateRoom's Fran O'Brien as they take you inside Angel Academe's deal process: how the network finds founders, how a team of angels pulls a deal apart before anyone invests, and how you can back the result through Angel Academe EIS Fund 2. The fund has a £10,000 minimum and closes on 30 October 2026.
Why Angel Academe invests only in female founders
How companies get from first pitch to investment
What makes a founder backable
How Fund 2 works, from the minimum investment to EIS tax relief
Angel Academe has put all the capital it raises into female-founded companies since its first investment in 2014. Female founders still raise far less than men, and Sarah Turner says the gap is widening as AI mega-deals take a growing share of capital. SyndicateRoom's own Companies House analysis of the female funding gap found all-female founding teams took 6–7% of UK equity deals between 2023 and Q1 2026, but only 2.5–3.7% of the capital.
Smaller rounds leave less room for error. Sarah's view is that founders need enough cash to survive the mistakes every startup makes.
Every company passes two filters before an angel or the fund invests: a members' screening panel, then due diligence run by a team of angels.
Screening. Founders apply through Angel Academe's website. Each Thursday, three or four pitch to a panel of members for 10 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of questions. Panellists give written feedback, and only companies with enough support go forward.
Due diligence. A deal team of up to a dozen angels splits the work by expertise: finance, legal, IP, competition, people and exit potential. They meet the founders on a joint deep-dive call, run one shared Q&A and write a single deal memo, ideally within four weeks. Each angel then decides for themselves whether to invest.
Once you've done the Q&A with an Angel Academe deal team, there isn't really anybody else that can ask you anything that you haven't thought of already.
– Verity Baldry, deal lead, Angel Academe
To see the companies the first fund backed, read Angel Academe EIS Fund 1: meet the portfolio companies.
Questions about the fund? Book a call with Tom Britton.
Please note: our office hours are weekdays, 9.30am - 5.30pm.
