Photo: Nick Shirghio
Profile · Founder
Gerry Poirier
She spent two decades as the only woman on the trading floor. So she built a crowdfunding platform run by women.
Photo: Nick Shirghio
She spent two decades as the only woman on the trading floor. So she built a crowdfunding platform run by women.
Every campaign that lands on AngeLink gets read by a machine first. Image recognition, text recognition, a verification pass - then a nudge to help the fundraiser write a better story. That is the quiet engine inside the company Gerry Poirier founded and runs: the platform she calls the world's first social crowdfunding platform powered by women.
Today AngeLink counts roughly 55,000 active users, operates in 100 currencies, and carries eight anti-fraud patents pending. It has pulled in more than $7.3 million in seed funding. The leadership bench - CEO, CFO, CTO, head of growth - is entirely women, and the teams behind them run about 90% female. None of that happened because a memo asked for it. It happened because Poirier had spent a career watching the opposite.
She is a member of the Forbes Technology Council and a 2021 Mindshare Award honoree. She also runs a registered 501(c)(3), the AngeLink Community Foundation, that writes direct impact grants. The whole operation runs remote, much of it from a home office in Naples, Florida - a town she happily calls "the Nantucket of Florida."
I couldn't simply stand by and watch this injustice persist. I knew I had to be part of the solution.
The late 1980s found Poirier on Credit Suisse's trading floor at 100 Wall Street. She stayed about five years in a job built on nerve. The room was loud, the stakes were high, and she was usually the only woman in it - a pattern that would repeat for more than twenty years.
When she wanted a posting in Japan, her boss was skeptical. Her answer was not to argue. She learned Japanese, then went back and made the case. The job followed. So did stints across New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and later a long run in finance that included Lazard and Equity Growth Partners.
Two decades in, the lesson had hardened into something she could name. She had worked, in her words, twice as hard for less recognition and lower pay. She had watched women get fewer opportunities and less of a voice. The trading floor taught her how money moves. It also taught her who tends to get left out of the room where it moves.
Told a posting in Japan was a stretch, Poirier picked up Japanese and changed her boss's mind. The same stubborn practicality shows up later in eight patents pending.
Across Credit Suisse, Lazard and beyond, she logged 20+ years as the lone woman at the table - the raw material for a company that would flip the arrangement.
She arranged the stay herself. The travel bug bit early and never quite let go.
A Eurail Pass, a Lonely Planet guide, and a continent. No chaperone required.
During a junior year abroad at Edinburgh, she crossed the region on a cargo flight. "I get bored easily," she says.
Joins Credit Suisse's trading floor at 100 Wall Street; roughly five years in a high-risk seat.
Learns Japanese, wins a posting in Japan; works across New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore.
More than two decades in finance, including Lazard and Equity Growth Partners.
Moves full-time to Naples, Florida after discovering Talis Park.
Launches AngeLink, the world's first social crowdfunding platform powered by women.
Named to the Forbes Technology Council; AngeLink passes $7.3M in seed funding.
Poirier likes to cite the lopsidedness directly. Women-led startups, she points out, are five times more likely to become billion-dollar companies and tend to generate more revenue per dollar invested than male-led businesses. And yet female founders receive only about 2.3% of total venture capital invested across all industries.
That gap is the thesis. She frames AngeLink not just as a place to pass a hat for an emergency or a medical bill, but as a venture-capital resource for female entrepreneurs - a community where women can raise money, share stories, and rally support without being the only one in the room.
It is a personal argument made into a product. "I saw with my own eyes how difficult it is for females," she says. "I knew I wanted to help in some way."
Figures as cited by Gerry Poirier. The 5x and revenue claims reference widely circulated studies on female-led startups.
We review every single campaign using AI tools, such as image and text recognition, and help users write a better story.