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October 7th, 2025

How Overlooked Founders Actually Get Funded

  1. How Overlooked Founders Actually Get Funded Alastair Goldfisher 21:30

Carrie Rich isn’t chasing trends. She’s backing people — especially overlooked founders solving real-world problems.

As co-founder of The Global Good Fund and Global Impact Fund, Rich has helped fund and coach hundreds of underrepresented entrepreneurs. In this episode, she explains how to raise capital without warm intros, why resilience matters more than revenue, and what founders can do to get investors to believe in them.

We also talk about what sets impact companies apart, and how she helped Asusu — now a unicorn — get their first check.

Whether you’re a founder forging your own path or an investor looking beyond the usual suspects, this one’s for you.

Chapters

00:00 Cold Open: Overlooked Founders = Big Opportunity

00:26 Intro to Carrie Rich and Global Good Fund

01:15 How the Fund Got Started

02:57 Evolution of Social Enterprises

03:44 Who They Target and Why

05:07 The Asusu Case Study

08:30 How the Impact Fund Grew from a Pilot

10:09 Fundraising Advice for First-Time Founders

12:05 Resilience, Teams, and Storytelling

13:44 Raising Outside the Traditional VC System

15:12 How to Build Relationships Without Warm Intros

16:51 Misconceptions About Impact and Returns

18:13 Final Thoughts and Book Tease

20:39 Outro

Get full access to The Venture Lens at theventurelens.substack.com/subscribe

Alastair Goldfisher Independent Journalist

I’m an independent journalist and podcaster focused on startup and venture capital trends, as well as storytelling and how AI is reshaping business and work. I host "The Venture Variety Show" and "The AI Cognitive Shift" podcasts, and I write "The Venture Lens" newsletter on Substack and Medium. I’ve spent 30 years in business journalism, covering Silicon Valley and beyond for outlets like Venture Capital Journal, Reuters, PEHub and Silicon Valley Business Journal. Today, I also help founders and investors sharpen their stories through media training and content consulting. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, stay curious about tech and people, and I always welcome a good conversation.