FirstPartyCapital

Managing Partner Rich Ashton leads fundraising and investing activity, including 18 investments out of Fund 1, alongside General Partners Ciarán O’Kane and Kevin Flood. O’Kane brings over 20 years of ad-tech experience; Flood co-founded three startups before FPC. Both general partners share decision-making authority on deal selection and portfolio management.

The firm sources through a tightly woven network of operator-advisors that includes Zeta Global CSO Will Margiloff, MediaMath co-founder Erich Wasserman, and Dentsu’s global head of data and technology Steve Simpson. Most advisors are active angel investors or senior commercial leaders inside large ad-tech and agency platforms, giving FPC visibility into founder-led startups before they reach broader venture markets.

FirstPartyCapital pursues direct equity investments in early-stage companies. No evidence suggests the firm participates in fund-of-funds commitments, club deals, or co-investment special-purpose vehicles — its disclosed activity reflects a pure direct-investment posture within its own fund structure.

The firm focuses on seed and start-up stages for companies building AI-driven, data-intensive, or outcomes-based marketing technology. This spans pre-revenue proof-of-concept through early commercial traction, with an emphasis on technical defensibility around proprietary data or algorithmic modelling.

It operates as an independent private equity asset manager organised around a sector-specific early-stage fund. The founding team built the firm around external limited partner capital, not a sole-family wealth source, and deploys through a traditional general partner / limited partner venture structure.

The eight named advisors include current and former C-suite executives from Zeta Global, DoubleVerify-acquired Scibids, Dentsu, and Experian. They contribute technical due diligence, commercial introductions, and US-market expansion guidance, functioning as an extension of the investment team rather than a passive advisory board.

The firm has disclosed no co-investment programme or syndicate partnerships. Given its narrow sector focus and operator-led sourcing, FPC is likely to lead or fill rounds independently, though the absence of published fund data prevents confirmation of side-by-side co-investment vehicles.