First Star Ventures

Three partners—Drew Volpe, Millie Liu, and Teddy Blank—make all investment decisions. The firm explicitly contrasts its three-partner model with mega-platform funds, describing itself as a concentrated team that backs founders with "complete conviction, not optionality." Each partner brings a mix of operator and investor experience: Volpe from Endeca and Semantic Machines, Liu from APT and MIT CSAIL, and Blank from Tempo and Symphony Commerce.

The firm sources heavily from university research ecosystems, particularly MIT, Harvard, and their associated labs. Millie Liu serves on the advisory board of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), which provides direct exposure to emerging work in AI, robotics, and computational biology. The partnership's operating backgrounds—spanning search infrastructure, conversational AI, enterprise analytics, and privacy technology—create referral networks that surface founders building on new computing paradigms before they have traction.

First Star is structured as a venture capital firm, specifically an asset manager in the private equity subcategory. It operates a pre-seed fund model with outside limited partners across three funds, not as a single-family or multi-family office. The firm's website presents it as a deep-tech AI fund with traditional VC fund economics.

First Star invests exclusively at the pre-seed stage, explicitly stating it backs "pre-traction, research-driven" companies. The firm leads rounds when founders have little more than a slide deck and advanced technical ideas. It then supports portfolio companies from zero through Series A and beyond, but its capital deployment is concentrated at the earliest institutional entry point before any commercial traction exists.

First Star makes direct equity investments into startups—the firm leads pre-seed rounds directly rather than committing capital to other venture funds. Its model relies on concentrated direct bets, with testimonials from portfolio companies describing First Star as a lead investor in their earliest rounds. There is no public indication of fund-of-funds or secondary commitments.

The firm reports backing 53 startups across three funds (per its website). The partnership points to over $3 billion in combined exit value generated through their prior roles as founders, executives, and investors, though it has not publicly disclosed exit values specific to First Star portfolio companies.

First Star focuses on deep technology sectors where new computing paradigms transform legacy industries: AI/ML, robotics and automation, biotechnology, enterprise software, cybersecurity, and energy. Named portfolio companies include AI-native geothermal developer Zanskar, robotic logistics firm PlusOneRobotics, decentralized identity-security startup Oort, engineering-intelligence platform Jellyfish, and smart health-sensor company Throne. The firm has not publicly stated explicit sector exclusions.