# First Round Capital

First Round Capital is a Private Equity based in San Francisco, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Private Equity
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** San Francisco, CA, United States
- **Founded:** 2004
- **Assets under management:** Undisclosed
- **Website:** firstround.com
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/first-round-capital
- **Wikidata:** Q5453766

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

Kopelman, a serial entrepreneur who sold Half.com to eBay, launched the San Francisco-based firm with an explicit bet that technology’s most valuable returns would accrue to investors willing to commit at idea-stage and seed. The firm operates from additional offices in New York and Philadelphia, and its partnership now includes former founders and operators Todd Jackson, Brett Berson, Hayley Barna, Liz Wessel, and Bill Trenchard. First Round targets initial round and Series A checks across enterprise, consumer, fintech, healthcare, and hardware. The firm’s portfolio history includes being first money into Roblox, where founder Dave Baszucki was on his eighty-seventh business-model iteration before raising, and Square, which Jack Dorsey tested against 140 reasons it would fail. Notion and Uber also appear in the firm’s disclosed track record. Investments span the United States with a concentration in technology hubs; the firm does not publicly disclose international deal activity. The team page lists over 40 professionals including dedicated recruiter, content, and go-to-market operations staff — a structural commitment unusual among early-stage venture managers. In May 2024, First Round promoted Hayley Barna and Liz Wessel to Partner, deepening its bench of operating partners who run founder-support functions alongside investment duties. The firm also maintains a venture platform that publishes proprietary frameworks for product-market fit and startup testing, turning internal operating knowledge into public IP. First Round’s structural differentiator is its platform-staffing ratio: more than a quarter of the named team works exclusively on post-investment support functions such as talent, editorial, marketing, and go-to-market enablement. This turns the firm into a hybrid of an early-stage fund and an in-house startup accelerator, designed to compress time-to-scale for pre-revenue portfolio companies without requiring formal accelerator cohorts.

## Sectors

- Enterprise Software
- FinTech
- AI/ML
- Digital Health
- Consumer
- Hardware

## Offices

- New York City, NY
- Philadelphia, PA

## People

- Josh Kopelman — Partner
- Todd Jackson — Partner
- Brett Berson — Partner
- Bill Trenchard — Partner
- Liz Wessel — Partner
- Hayley Barna — Partner

## Questions

### Who runs investment decisions at First Round Capital?

Decisions are made by the firm’s six named partners: Josh Kopelman, Todd Jackson, Brett Berson, Bill Trenchard, Hayley Barna, and Liz Wessel. Each partner operates as both an investor and a hands-on resource for portfolio companies, with backgrounds spanning founding roles and C-suite operating experience. The firm does not disclose a formal investment committee structure.

### What investment stages does First Round typically target?

First Round targets companies at the earliest stages — often when the founder has only an idea or a minimal prototype. The firm writes initial round and Series A checks, occasionally investing before a company has formally incorporated. Later-stage follow-on investments happen, but the primary deployment window is pre-revenue to early go-to-market.

### Which sectors does First Round explicitly avoid?

The firm does not publish a formal exclusion list. However, its public materials and named portfolio companies emphasize technology-enabled businesses in enterprise software, consumer, fintech, digital health, and hardware. Hard-asset plays, infrastructure, and non-tech services do not appear in its disclosed focus areas.

## Related profiles

- [FirstRock](https://altss.com/profile/firstrock)
- [First Row Partners](https://altss.com/profile/first-row-partners)

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Last updated: 2026-06-03T20:00:00.000Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/first-round-capital

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