Here’s something that many founders only realize later: fundraising isn’t really about having the perfect pitch or knowing the right people. It’s about having experienced what it’s like before.
That’s what kept coming up in my conversation with Philipp Omenitsch. Not as something he’s bitter about, but something he’s noticed again and again. First as a founder, then as a CTO, and now through the data from over 17,000 pitch decks he’s analyzed.
So our conversation is about experience, timing, and why so many founders only understand the rules after they’ve already played the game.
You can listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube or keep scrolling for lessons, magic moments, and insights from the episode.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
Fundraising is a difficult game. There is no clear playbook, and most of the rules are never spelled out. Investors expect you to already know how things work. This conversation with Philipp unpacks how the funding system actually works, and why it feels so confusing the first time you go through it.
Experience is the strongest advantage in fundraising
One of the clearest signals in the Founder Files data is prior startup experience. Founders who have built companies before are more likely to get funded and tend to raise larger amounts. That helps explain why fundraising often feels easier the second time around. The idea is not necessarily better. The founder simply understands the game.
Understanding VC math changes how you position your startup
Philipp explains that most VC funds need every investment to have the potential to return the entire fund. At early stages, that means investors are looking for companies that could grow very large, very fast. When founders understand this logic, they can better judge whether VC is the right path for them and how to frame their story accordingly.
A pitch deck is not documentation. It is a sales tool
Pitching is part of selling. That means clarity, structure, and design matter more than many founders expect. Trust signals like prior experience, technical ownership, and even mentioning existing investors play an outsized role when there is little hard data to rely on.
Once you know and understand these lessons, the rules of startup funding start to make sense. Not because they change, but because you’ve learned how the system works and what it pays attention to.
💬 Know a founder who could use these funding insights? Share the episode using the buttons below.
Or scroll down for magical moments, practical takeaways, and my own observations that made this episode impossible to forget.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote From The Episode
- 3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 138 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- About Philipp Omenitsch
- About Sequel
- About the Founder Files
- Other ways to amplify the voices of Women Disrupting Tech
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- What I Want To Leave You With
- A Question for You 🤔
Highlights and timestamps
| Time | Highlight |
|---|---|
| 01:52 | Introduction to Philipp Omenitsch and Sequel |
| 04:31 | Democratizing Access to Venture Capital |
| 07:09 | Barriers to Accessing Venture Capital |
| 10:09 | The Founder Files and Pitch Deck Analysis |
| 12:45 | Gender Disparities in Startup Funding |
| 15:36 | The Importance of Prior Experience |
| 18:09 | Investment Decisions in Venture Capital |
| 20:30 | The Impact of Diverse Founding Teams |
| 23:08 | The Importance of Diversity in Startups |
| 26:01 | Leveraging Data for Female Founders |
| 28:47 | The Role of Technical Co-Founders |
| 30:41 | Investing in Female Founders |
| 32:03 | Communication Styles of Female Founders |
| 33:40 | Key Components of a Successful Pitch Deck |
| 34:58 | Empowering Athletes in Investment Decisions |
| 37:33 | The Performance Mindset of Athletes |
| 40:04 | Lessons from Startup Experiences |
| 44:13 | Building Successful Pitch Tools |
3 Magic Moments In The Episode
The magic in this episode is that Philipp combines data from the Founder Files with real co-founder experience. We are looking at insights from 17,000 pitch decks alongside the lived experience of athletes who understand long-term performance and pressure. The moments below challenge assumptions that founders often carry into fundraising.
Experience as the great equalizer
The surprising part is not that women are less fundable. In this dataset, women represent about 20 percent of founders and receive about 20 percent of the deals. The gap shows up in experience: Philipp points out that women are less likely to have built a startup before or had an exit. And in the Founder Files, prior startup and exit experience is associated with larger rounds.
“To have at least one woman in the founding team can only be beneficial.”
Philipp makes this point calmly, almost in passing. He frames diversity as a business advantage rather than a moral position. Different perspectives lead to better decisions, especially when companies are still shaping their product and market.
Pay gaps shape who gets to invest, not just who gets funded
When we talk about athlete investors, Philipp points out something easy to miss. Because of pay gaps in professional sports, most of Sequel’s clients are men. Having fewer female investors means having fewer investors asking for or backing female-founded startups. This is a clear example of how inequality upstream shapes outcomes downstream.
Together, these moments shift the conversation from individual founders to the system around them. Funding outcomes are rarely about a single decision. They are the result of who has access, experience, and capital along the way.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or keep scrolling for practical takeaways you can apply as a founder (or as an investor).
Practical Takeaways for Founders
What emerges from our conversation is that fundraising is a game of experience. But what if you’re raising funding for the first time? Here are three things that can help you navigate the process with more clarity and less guesswork.
Make experience visible, even if it’s not a big exit
Prior startup experience is one of the strongest signals in fundraising. If you’ve built something before, worked at a fast-growing startup, or been close to a scale-up journey, make that visible. When investors see experience on a founder’s resume, they are not looking for a flawless track record or a big win. They are looking for founders who recognize startup patterns.
Show technical ownership on your team slide
A technical background is not limited to a formal education. What matters is the ability and willingness to dig into problems and solve them yourself. Especially early on, investors want to see that core technical decisions stay inside the founding team. They do not want to see those decisions outsourced to an agency or a future hire.
Treat your pitch deck like a sales conversation
Philipp puts this clearly: pitching is part of selling. That means clarity, structure, and design matter. Mentioning existing investors, showing momentum, and making it easy to understand what you are building all help build trust. This is especially important when there is little hard data to fall back on.
Taken together, these takeaways are not about gaming the system. They are about understanding how decisions are made, so you can show up prepared instead of guessing.
💬 Know a founder who is fundraising? Use the share button below to tell them about this episode.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
“I think investing in startups is the best way to understand the ecosystem itself.”
Philipp Omenitsch – Co-founder and CTO of Sequel
What makes this quote powerful is that it reframes investing as participation, not observation. You don’t really understand how funding decisions are made until you are part of them. That insight runs through everything in this episode, from PitchLeague to the Founder Files, and it explains why experience keeps showing up as such a decisive factor.
3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
Philipp’s story is packed with information. That makes sense when you consider the huge amount of data that his insights are based on. Listening back, a few things became clearer to me.
The funding gap is closely tied to an experience gap
The Founder Files show that prior startup and exit experience is strongly linked to larger funding rounds. Women in the dataset are less likely to have that experience. That does not say anything about talent or ambition. But it does explain how advantages build up over time, and how more female founder exits will contribute to a more equal funding landscape.
Pay gaps don’t stop at salaries. They shape who gets to invest
When Philipp explained why most of Sequel’s athlete clients are men, something clicked for me. When income is unequal early on, investment power becomes unequal later. That pattern does not just affect founders. It also affects who becomes an investor later and who gets to decide where capital flows.
Why institutional capital matters more than we often admit
The conversation with Philipp reinforced my belief that closing the funding gap cannot rely on angel investors and venture capital alone. Capital sources like pension funds operate at a scale where personal pay gaps matter less. If we want structural change, capital needs to be allocated in a structural way too.
Taken together, these insights changed how I think about responsibility in the system. Progress is not just about better pitches or better intentions. It is about where experience and capital compound over time.
💬 What changed your thinking as you listened to this episode? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
In the next episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I sit down with Melissa Solis to talk about leadership, AI, and what it really means to build companies that treat people with respect.
Melissa is a seasoned tech CEO with deep experience in AI and enterprise software, and she brings a perspective shaped by hard work, lived experience, and clear values.
In the short clip from the episode, Melissa shares a lesson she learned early on: leadership starts with gratitude. She explains how valuing people at work directly shapes how customers are treated. It’s a simple idea, but one with real consequences for culture, trust, and long-term success.
Listen to the clip now, and stay tuned for the full conversation in the next episode, where we explore AI as a system-shifter, agency in leadership, and why effort and respect still matter when technology changes everything.
When you’re subscribed, you’ll find it in your mailbox on 12 February 2026 at 8 am CET.
And until the next episode, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
Listen to Episode 138 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
What Most Founders Learn Too Late About Startup Funding with Philipp Omenitsch | Ep. 138 – Women Disrupting Tech
About Philipp Omenitsch
Philipp Omenitsch is a tech entrepreneur, angel investor, and the co-founder and CTO of Sequel, where he leads the company’s technical vision and product innovation. At Sequel, he builds tools that help professional athletes invest in startups and explore entrepreneurship beyond sport, with a focus on positive impact and education.
Philipe founded PitchLeague.ai, an AI-powered platform that gives founders feedback on their pitch decks, and helped create the Founder Files, the largest quantitative analysis of more than 17,000 startup pitch decks and funding outcomes.
You can connect with Philipp on LinkedIn. And you can test your pitch deck on the website of PitchLeague.ai.
About Sequel
Sequel is a digital family office for the world’s best athletes. By combining education, technology, and hands-on investing, Sequel enables athletes to build long-term wealth while gaining a deeper understanding of the startup ecosystem.
Sequel focuses on making venture capital more accessible and transparent to a new group of investors. Through data-driven tools and practical experience, the platform supports both athletes entering the world of investing and founders looking to connect with engaged, long-term partners.
You can discover more about Sequel on the website and by following their LinkedIn Page.
About the Founder Files
Founder Files is a data-driven insight platform built from the largest collection of startup pitch decks and funding data to date. Powered by analysis of more than 17,000 pitch decks, Founder Files reveals patterns in how founders present their businesses, how investors respond, and what structural signals correlate with funding outcomes.
The platform distills complex data into actionable insights that help founders understand the mechanics of fundraising earlier in their journey. Instead of anecdotes or guesswork, Founder Files offers evidence-based guidance on topics like experience, team composition, and pitch effectiveness, helping founders learn the unspoken rules of venture capital before they’re in the room.
You can download the full report and get access to the SequelGPT on the website.
Other ways to amplify the voices of Women Disrupting Tech
Want to help make the funding gap go away by the end of 2032? Here’s how you can help:
Follow the Women Disrupting Tech Podcast
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Every follow brings these stories to more people.
Give the show a rating or review on Spotify or Apple.
It only takes a moment, but it tells others this podcast is worth listening to. And helps the voices of my guests carry further.
Share the episodes that move you.
Send this episode to a friend, a colleague, or someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps to build a more inclusive tech future and supports my guests in getting the stage they deserve.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
The fall is loaded with great events, and I’ve found some cool ones. Below is one event you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
If you like being in the know about what is happening in the DEI space, Diverse Leaders in Tech is the place to be.
Every last Thursday of the month, they have monthly in-person meetups for tech people, HR leaders and supporters of diversity to exchange insights, tackle challenges, and take action. It’s a vibrant, safe space where diversity is celebrated.
You can register for events on the DLiT website. Did I mention that joining your first event is free?
Equals Events
Equals is on a mission to shape a society where women and men stand on equal footing. At their home base in Amsterdam, they regularly organize events, but you can organize yours there too. You can find the events on Luma.
What I Want To Leave You With
This episode is not about quick fixes or clever tactics. It’s about understanding how experience, access, and capital shape outcomes over time.
If you are a founder, especially a first-time one, feeling confused by fundraising is not a personal failure. It’s a predictable result of a system that assumes prior knowledge. Learning how it works earlier changes how you move through it.
And if we are serious about closing the funding gap, the work does not stop at helping founders pitch better. It also means paying attention to who gets experience, who gets exits, and who gets to allocate capital in the first place.
You can listen to our entire conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
A Question for You 🤔
💬 What’s one thing about fundraising that you look different to after listening to this episode?
👇 Share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s keep this conversation going and discover new truths.
Women Disrupting Tech | The Podcast 
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