30 - Network State Conference 2025 - Avlok Kohli on why Angellist built their Founders Cafe

12 Oct 2025 · 3 min

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2:40

In a conversation at the Network State Conference 2025, Avlok Kohli, the CEO of AngelList, shares his entrepreneurial background—founding three companies between 2011 and 2019, selling two, and leading AngelList since 2019. He explains AngelList’s mission as building infrastructure that channels capital to startups, serving early‑stage to large venture funds and providing founder‑focused fundraising tools, with $2 billion in assets under management. Kohli then introduces the All Founders Cafe, a physical, invite‑only workspace created on AngelList’s office first floor. The cafe offers 24/7‑like access (open seven days a week until midnight), reliable Wi‑Fi, and quality coffee, addressing founders’ frustrations with typical coffee shops. The space aims to (1) boost founder productivity, (2) energize AngelList employees by immersing them in founder activity, and (3) foster community connections among founders and fund‑founders. Access is granted after founders request and are reviewed. Two weeks after launch, reception has been positive, with noticeable changes in employee empathy and customer understanding. Kohli credits the broader ideas of Startup Societies and Network States for inspiring this physical collaboration hub.

Avlok, welcome to the Network State Conference. Tell everybody a little bit about yourself and about AngelList.
My background is I've started 3 companies from 2011 to 2019, sold 2 of them, and I've been leading AngelList since 2019. And AngelList, the best way to think about it is we build products that drive more capital to startups, and we really sit at the infrastructure layer. Our customers are early-stage venture funds to a lot of the large venture funds, and we also have products for founders to help them raise capital. At this point, we have 171 $2 billion in assets support it.
I actually run a large fund on AngelList at biology.com, so you and Novel have done an amazing job building it. I want to talk to you about your new AngelList Cafe that caught my eye. So you built a physical space.
We really built a physical space for founders, All Founders Cafe, and the idea really just came from a personal observation. When I was a founder, there weren't a lot of great places to work. You go to a coffee shop and it closes early, Wi-Fi sucks, Honestly, coffee sucks too. So we wanted a space where you have great Wi-Fi, it's open late, so we're open 7 days a week until midnight, and the coffee's great. So the space was meant to be a place where founders can come in, they can lock in, and they can just get great work done. We actually took the first floor of our office, so open it up to founders, and it's been 2 weeks and, uh, we made it invite only. So founders in the AngelList community, founders within the area, they can request access., we review, and then we open up access. Reception's been great. We're not trying to make money from it. For us, it was really easy to justify, yeah, if we build this physical space where founders are coming in, number one, we can bring the founder energy to everyone that works at AngelList, right? What better way to motivate, energize the team constantly where founders are locked in, working away, passionate about their ideas? So just the employee benefit alone and the energy in the office was easy to justify. But second, for us, it was just a way to get our founder community and also founders who've started funds to come into the space to connect with each other. And there's a customer benefit now, right? I'm kicking myself for not doing this 3 years ago, 4 years ago. When I first read your book, I should have done it. But anyways, we did it.
So I think it's fair to say Startup Societies, Network States helped influence some of this.
So yeah, I love what you've done with Network State and all the fiscal space you've built. In Singapore, and I'm just glad we, we finally did it. Something's definitely changed in the last 2 weeks with even our employees and how they engage and how they empathize and how they understand our customers because it's so close. It's like a physical relationship.
Amazing. Thanks for speaking, speaking at the Nerdster Conference.