Alma Deep Dive | Alma Insights on How to Due Diligence

​- Event exclusive to Alma Angels -

​In this Deep-Dive session, we’ll turn the lens inward and unpack how Alma Angels approach due diligence from first impression to investment decision.

​We’ll be joined by Emmie Faust, Founder of Female Founders Rise; Sapna Shah, Syndicate Lead & Venture Partner at Sie Ventures and Andrea Sommer, Founder of Hive Founders. These experienced Almas will share how they personally assess deals, what they prioritise at different stages, and how they go deeper after initial founder conversations and Alma DD calls.

​The discussion will cover:

​​​🔹 How Almas approach due diligence in practice
🔹 What they look for first and what they deprioritise
🔹Red flags, patterns and signals that consistently influence decisions

​Expect a candid, experience-led conversation focused on how decisions actually get made, rather than theory or textbook frameworks.

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​Emmie Faust is the founder of Female Founders Rise, a community supporting 11,000 UK female founders.  She is an exited entrepreneur, a micro angel investor in 30+ female-led businesses and a Dragons' Den winner. Female Founders Rise exists to enable financial freedom for women through entrepreneurship, with 4 key pillars: community, funding support, business fundamentals and raising awareness of female founders.  

​Emmie is also the founder of The Rise Report of Female Entrepreneurship - data, stories and insights from over 2000 female entrepreneurs.

​Sapna Shah is a Venture Partner at Sie Ventures (joined September 2025), an Alma Angel, and a Fractional CFO to high-growth startups. She leverages nearly two decades of financial management experience to support ambitious founders.

​Her move into venture capital and startup advisory builds on a 20-year track record in financial leadership, where she developed a structured, methodical approach to assessing business fundamentals, analysing growth potential, and building sustainable financial infrastructure.

​Andrea Sommer is a commercial strategist, entrepreneur, advisor and investor with global experience across emerging technology, innovation and strategic growth. She has built and scaled four technology businesses and advised major brands including Microsoft across the US, South America and Europe.

​She is CEO and Co-Founder of Hive Founders, a global network supporting over 5,000 women and non-binary founders, and leads Womankind Ventures, an angel group focused on increasing capital for underrepresented founders. She previously served as Director of Strategic Initiatives Europe at Avanade and holds a BA from Reed College and an Executive MBA from London Business School.

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About the Alma Community

​​Alma Angels is Europe’s largest diverse and active investment community on a mission: Generate $1 trillion in women-led wealth by 2050. Since 2020, our non-profit organisation has brought together and trained over 600 angel investors who have invested into 250+ women (co)founders building tech or IP-rich ventures with global ambitions. These companies have gone on to raise more than $300m to date and are valued at $1.6 billion. In 2025, Alma received the “Rising Star Angel Group of the Year” award by the UK Business Angels Association.

​​Alma Angels is committed to training 10,000 angels and backing 10,000 women founders by 2035.

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