Gaingels

Gaingels is an investment network that co-invests alongside the venture capital firm leading a round, rather than leading rounds itself, and selects for companies building diverse and inclusive teams — with a particular focus on backing LGBTQ+ founders and underrepresented leaders. It describes itself as among the largest investors in the world aiming to show that equity of access and representation in venture capital delivers positive returns, which is a thesis about returns and not only about representation. On its own site it states that it has deployed into a portfolio of more than 2,400 companies since 2019, with total capital passing $1 billion by January 2026, across sectors including artificial intelligence, healthcare, financial technology, defence and deep technology. Those are the firm's own figures. It appears in published deal-count rankings as one of the most active investors by number of deals, which follows from the co-investment model.