First Round Capital: The seed pioneer that found Uber, Notion and Square first

Few firms can claim to have invented a category. First Round Capital can: founded in 2004 by Josh Kopelman and Howard Morgan, it was one of the very first institutional venture firms dedicated exclusively to seed-stage investing, at a time when almost no one funded pre-revenue companies. Kopelman brought founder DNA — he had built Infonautics and Half.com, which eBay acquired — and the firm set out to own the earliest stage of the market.

The record that followed is extraordinary. First Round was the first institutional investor in Uber, leading the seed round in 2010 when the company was still called UberCab — investing roughly $1.6 million across the first two rounds, a stake worth about $2.5 billion at the company's 2019 IPO, according to The Wall Street Journal. It also invested early in Notion, writing the biggest cheque in the company's $2 million seed round in 2013; Square; Roblox, holding about 6.8 per cent at its 2021 direct listing; Looker, which Google acquired for $2.6 billion in 2020; Flatiron Health, acquired by Roche for $1.9 billion in 2018; and Warby Parker. Recent portfolio tilts toward AI infrastructure, including Fal and Clay, both featured on the firm's homepage.

Capital discipline has been part of the brand: the firm raised a $175 million fifth fund in 2014, deliberately modest next to multibillion-dollar competitors, and continues to specialise in first cheques rather than chasing later-stage assets. Partners today include Kopelman, Bill Trenchard (a five-time Forbes Midas List investor behind Looker, Verkada and Flexport), Brett Berson, Todd Jackson, Liz Wessel, Hayley Barna and Meka Asonye, with Howard Morgan as co-founder and board partner.

Where First Round truly stands apart is its founder ecosystem. It operates the Dorm Room Fund, a student-run fund backing student founders, and Angel Track, a no-fee fellowship that trains emerging angels. And it publishes the First Round Review — "tactical 0-1 breakdowns" and practitioner-grade operating manuals that have become one of the most widely read company-building resources in tech, covering everything from co-founder dating to finding product-market fit.

The investment thesis is deliberately generalist: The Wall Street Journal has described First Round as one of the most active US venture firms, with investments spanning AI, consumer, enterprise software, fintech, hardware and healthcare. The firm's edge is not a sector thesis but a stage obsession — it specialises in being the first institutional capital in, and keeps reserves for follow-on rounds as winners emerge. That seed-first identity, held consistently since 2004, is what lets a relatively small team keep producing outsized outcomes.