First Round Capital

First Round
Industry Venture Capital
Founded 2004
Headquarters Philadelphia
Website www.firstround.com

First Round is a venture capital firm that specializes in providing seed-stage funding to technology companies.

Founded by Josh Kopelman,[1] the firm's investment team now includes Chris Fralic, Rob Hayes, Howard L. Morgan, Bill Trenchard, and Phineas Barnes. First Round typically provides seed-stage funding and focuses on portfolio companies' growth during their first 18 months. It has offices in San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York.

The company seeks to take an active role in supporting the operations of its portfolio companies.[2] To make this possible, it built a platform team to encourage community between its portfolio companies, hold industry events, promote mindshare and offer consulting services.[3] The company publishes First Round Review, a blog with industry experts on management and operations best practices.[4] In 2012, the firm launched Dorm Room Fund for college students to fund startups founded by their peers.[5]

Since its inception in 2004, First Round has backed more than 150 companies,[6] including Uber,[7] Square,[8] Warby Parker,[9] Knewton,[10] Wikia,[11] Odeo,[12] The Climate Corporation,[13] Clover Health,[14] Abra,[15] and more. First Round has already generated significant returns for its investors from acquisitions such as StumbleUpon by eBay for $75 million[16] and Mint.com by Intuit for $170 million.[17]

Every December, the firm produces a video holiday card[18] based on the biggest video memes of the year, and featuring executives from First Round and its portfolio companies. In the past, holiday videos have gone viral, spoofing Miley Cyrus' song "Wrecking Ball," "Call me Maybe" and "Gangnam Style." [19]

References

  1. ↑ Well-Known Tech Investor Aims Higher, cnnmoney.com, September 7, 2007
  2. ↑ "First Round Capital, Ideal Startup Investment", Angelsoft.net
  3. ↑ "In the Studio," Kent Goldman Discusses First Round's Platform Approach, techcrunch.com, September 20, 2012
  4. ↑ "First Round Review". firstround.com. Retrieved 2018-02-18.
  5. ↑ For Students, By Students: First Round Capital Announces Dorm Room Fund in Philly, PandoDaily, September 24, 2012
  6. ↑ "First Round Capital", CrunchBase, December 2013
  7. ↑ UberCab Closes Uber Angel Round, techcrunch.com, October 15, 2010
  8. ↑ Square Closes $200M Round from Starbucks, Others, PE Hub, September 17, 2012,
  9. ↑ Warby Parker Raises Money to Sell Prescription Glasses Online, The New York Times, September 22, 2011,
  10. ↑ Newly Profitable Knewton Raises $51M for Personalized Learning, VentureBeat, December 20, 2013
  11. ↑ Bent on user-generated content, Wikia raises $11M to grow its network of wiki sites, The Next Web, November 30, 2012
  12. ↑ "Odeo," Crunchbase, December 2013
  13. ↑ Climate Corp. Raises Another $50M Led By Founders Fund, GigaOm, June 14, 2012,
  14. ↑ Rao, Leena. "How this startup is trying to upend health insurance". www.fortune.com. Retrieved 30 September 2015.
  15. ↑ Tepper, Fitz (10 September 2015). "Abra Raises $12M In Series A Funding For Its Bitcoin-Based Remittance Service". TechCrunch. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  16. ↑ eBay press release
  17. ↑ Mint.com press release
  18. ↑ "What Does the VC Sing? Harlem-Shaking, Twerking First Round's 2013 Holiday Video Is a Wrecking Ball," AllThingsD, December 19, 2013
  19. ↑ Buhr, Sarah. "First Round Might Break The Silicon Valley Internets With Annual Holiday Video". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-01-26.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.