Angel Investors, Equity Investors, and Venture Capital in the Adult Industry

And Why the Capital Conversation Needs a New Place to Live

By Joseph Haecker

Editor-in-Chief, Only Fans Insider Magazine

Author of Founder Rehab

I’ve spent most of my career inside startup ecosystems—long before “creator economy” became a respectable phrase, and long before adult platforms were discussed anywhere other than behind closed doors.

I’ve sat in pitch rooms where the decks were flawless, the jargon was polished, and the founders knew exactly which words were supposed to unlock capital.

And I’ve sat with founders who were doing something far more dangerous—and far more interesting—building real businesses that didn’t fit neatly into institutional comfort.

Those founders didn’t lack traction.

They didn’t lack discipline.

They didn’t lack intelligence.

They lacked permission.

Which leads me to a question I’ve been asking for years—across SaaS, hardware, fintech, AI, and now adult:

Why do we pretend certain industries aren’t “real,” even when they outperform the ones we celebrate?

And if we’re going to be honest:

If investors can fund gambling apps, alcohol brands, cannabis startups, crypto casinos, and algorithms engineered to hijack attention—

what exactly is the moral or financial line that consenting adults cross?

This isn’t a funding problem.

It’s a narrative problem.

I’ve seen this pattern long before adult entered the conversation

When I wrote Founder Rehab, it wasn’t because startups fail. It was because founders break—usually when the story they’ve been sold about how capital works collapses under reality.

Through years of volunteering inside startup communities, through my work with Tech Alley, and now through my advisory role with the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Artificial Intelligence program, I’ve seen the same cycle repeat:

Founders are told: Build quietly.

Pitch politely.

Wait to be chosen.

But that assumes the system is neutral.

It isn’t.

I’ve watched healthcare founders struggle because insurers were uncomfortable.

I’ve watched fintech founders get blocked because they threatened incumbents.

I’ve watched AI founders build incredible systems only to discover governance and optics mattered as much as performance.

Adult founders aren’t an exception to this pattern.

They’re simply more honest about where the friction is.

The adult industry doesn’t lack revenue—it lacks institutional comfort

If anyone still needs proof that adult is economically real, look at OnlyFans.

The numbers are not speculative.

The margins are not theoretical.

The demand isn’t cyclical.

And yet, in 2021, OnlyFans nearly imploded—not because creators failed, not because users left, but because payment processors applied pressure.

That moment revealed something every adult founder eventually learns:

You can have customers, revenue, and growth—and still be one policy update away from chaos.

So when investors ask, “Is this a real business?”

What they’re often really asking is:

“Can this business exist without making me uncomfortable?”

Angel investors: the first people willing to say the quiet part out loud

Some of the most honest startup conversations I’ve ever had didn’t happen in boardrooms.

They happened after events.

Over coffee.

Inside community spaces like Tech Alley, where builders talk without posturing.

That’s where angel investors live.

Angels invest as humans, not institutions. They don’t need committee approval. They don’t need to defend your business to LPs. They don’t need to worry about how a deal looks on a conference slide.

They can simply say, “I understand this.”

In adult, that matters.

But here’s what founders don’t always admit: angel money isn’t easy money.

It’s personal.

It’s relational.

And it often comes with expectations that aren’t written down.

I’ve seen founders accept angel checks without asking the hardest question:

“What does this person need from me if this works?”

Because angels show up differently when the upside becomes visible.

Equity investors: belief—with conditions attached

As adult businesses mature, equity investors begin to circle.

Family offices.

Strategic operators.

Industry-adjacent capital.

These investors don’t ask whether adult is real.

They ask how exposed they are.

They want to understand compliance.

Payments redundancy.

Governance.

Risk.

And then they price in what I call the adult tax.

Lower valuations.

More conservative terms.

More protection.

Is it fair? Not always.

Is it rational? Often.

Adult founders operate closer to platform and policy risk than most startups ever will. Equity investors know that—and they price accordingly.

Venture capital: not moral—structural

This is where mythology does the most damage.

Venture capital is not capital for good ideas.

It’s capital for fund outcomes.

VCs don’t just invest in companies. They invest in narratives they can explain to LPs, regulators, and future public markets.

That’s why adult makes them nervous.

Not because the math is bad.

But because the story is inconvenient.

“How does this fit an IPO narrative?”

“What happens when payments change?”

“How do we explain this to LPs?”

These aren’t moral objections.

They’re structural constraints.

And no amount of traction fixes a story the system isn’t prepared to tell.

Then something interesting started happening in public

On July 7, 2025, Only Fans Insider Magazine published an article that quietly exposed this entire contradiction:

“Sabrina Fischer: The Rogue Engineer Who Rewired the Cycling World with Grit, Gears, and OnlyFans.”

Sabrina was doing what investors claim to love.

She was an engineer.

A builder.

A founder in cycling tech.

And yet, when she tried to raise capital, the doors stayed closed.

So she did something the startup playbooks don’t prepare you for.

She self-funded.

Not through pitch competitions.

Not through friends and family.

She used OnlyFans as a revenue engine to finance her startup.

Ask yourself:

Is that a failure of the founder—or a failure of the funding system?

Because Sabrina didn’t pivot to adult.

She used the only capital system that didn’t require permission.

This is the moment the conversation changes

Sabrina’s story didn’t stay hidden in a Slack channel.

It didn’t get buried in a pitch deck appendix.

It lived publicly.

And that’s the shift.

Because capital conversations don’t start when money shows up.

They start when a story becomes unavoidable.

That’s when I realized something important:

Only Fans Insider Magazine isn’t just media.

It’s infrastructure.

What if OFI became the place where capital stories surface?

OFI already does something most platforms don’t.

It allows founders, creators, and operators to publish in their own words.

Not filtered through PR.

Not rewritten for comfort.

Not reduced to soundbites.

What if more founders used OFI to document: how they funded

why traditional capital failed

how they built resilience anyway

Not as marketing—but as public due diligence.

Because when founders explain their funding journeys openly, they aren’t just telling stories.

They’re educating the market.

They’re reframing risk.

They’re changing how investability is understood.

And investors?

They’re reading—even when they don’t comment.

Ecosystems don’t change through permission—they change through repetition

Tech Alley didn’t exist because someone approved it.

Startup ecosystems don’t grow because capital says it’s time.

They grow because conversations compound.

Shared stories become shared language.

Shared language becomes shared understanding.

OFI has the opportunity to become that narrative layer—not by lobbying investors, but by letting founders tell the truth about how they build and fund real businesses.

A final question—for founders and investors alike

If you’re a founder:

Are you hiding your funding story… or documenting it?

And if you’re an investor:

Are you avoiding adult because it’s a bad business—or because understanding it would force you to rethink where value actually comes from?

Only Fans Insider Magazine doesn’t need to convince anyone that adult is investable.

The numbers already do that.

What it can do—and what I believe it should do—is give founders, investors, and the community a place to tell the stories capital systems keep missing.

Sabrina Fischer didn’t just fund her startup.

She exposed a gap.

And gaps—once named—have a way of pulling capital toward them.

That’s the conversation worth building next.