Philadelphia - City of Angels

Early last year, First Round was honored to be selected by the City of Philadelphia and PIDC to manage the Startup PHL Seed Fund – a $6M fund designed to increase the availability of investment capital for Philadelphia-based startups. And to date, we have funded three Philly-based companies through that fund (Real Foods Works, Velano Vascular, and a third startup that has not yet announced their funding yet).

Today, I am excited to announce that Startup PHL has expanded its mandate to allow funding of some of Philadelphia’s earliest-stage startups with the Startup PHL Angel Fund.  Making investments from $25,000 to $100,000, the Angel Fund will invest at earlier stages than the Seed Fund – co-investing alongside angel investors (rather than First Round Capital) to help very early-stage companies build a minimum viable product or validate key assumptions.  

Today we will be announcing the first three Startup PHL Angel Fund investments at an event this evening organized by Philly Startup Leaders, Technically Philly and Startup PHL.  The three companies include:

Squareknot is a way for people to create beautiful step-by-step guides. Users can collaborate on guides by branching off in separate directions to demonstrate their unique way of doing the same thing.

Tesorio enables companies to self-finance their daily operations, streamlining early payments on invoices so suppliers get paid early and buyers optimize returns on cash.

VeryApt combines user reviews with big data analytics to deliver intelligent, personalized apartment recommendations.

If your company is based in Philly or you are planning to move here, we would love for you to introduce yourself to Startup PHL here.

Philadelphia is becoming one of the most exciting, dynamic startup cities in the country, and First Round is proud to be a part of the city's growing community of entrepreneurs. We look forward to supporting more great founders as they build innovative companies in America's founding city.

 

V

I’m thrilled to announce the close of our newest fund, First Round V. We’re honored that every one of our institutional limited partners has recommitted to this fund, and so grateful for their support and belief in our vision.

That vision remains unchanged since First Round was founded a decade ago. We’ve always been laser-focused on being the world’s best partner for seed stage companies -- a commitment that shapes and directs everything we do.

In 2008, when we closed First Round II, I wrote:

We prefer to see and fund companies early – after all, we’re not Second Round Capital. We are comfortable with “Powerpoint Risk,” and are used to funding incomplete technologies, teams and business models.

I could say the same thing today. Back then, we were flooded with requests from later-stage companies who saw that we had raised a larger fund and were looking for Series A and Series B capital. We passed on those opportunities to stick to our seed-stage roots. And now, with First Round V, we’ll continue to serve the seed market with the same strategy and initial investment sizes. We believe in the power and purity of being specialists.

This new fund also gives us the opportunity to work with even more inspired and inspiring founders and companies. Our mission here at First Round is to build and serve the strongest community of entrepreneurs. That means every time we make a new investment, we have the chance to bring new talent into the fold to make the entire community stronger. This peer-to-peer approach is core to what we do and what we’re building, especially our effort to accelerate startups post-investment.

Since we announced First Round II, we’ve multiplied the resources we provide to our companies in this area tenfold. Our Platform Team is soon to be 12 people who are solely dedicated to helping startups succeed at the earliest stage. We’ve built a robust recruiting operation, ramped up to 80 annual knowledge-sharing events with the world’s best speakers and attendees, and brought engineering in-house to create software that better connects and serves the 180 companies in our community. Our Platform is now the largest team at First Round by a longshot -- a testament to how important it is for us to support companies in unique ways.

We’ve even taken our internal approach to mindshare and open-sourced it with the launch of First Round Review over a year ago. As the first publication of its kind, it’s just one example of how First Round innovates like a startup even as we continue to scale. Another example is Dorm Room Fund, which launched on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus two years ago to fund student enterprises, and has since expanded to four cities. (It just yielded its first acquisition a couple weeks ago!)

Going forward, we know that staying close to innovation on the ground is critical to our success, which is why we’ll keep investing in our offices in San Francisco, New York and Philadelphia. We’re especially thrilled to announce the addition of Wiley Cerilli as a Venture Partner in our New York Office. Wiley founded and led SinglePlatform, where we became his first investor before it was acquired by Constant Contact two years ago. He’s got one of the sharpest minds for sales that we’ve encountered, and we’ll be very lucky to have him join Chris and Howard as part of our investment team in New York. Sales continues to be a critical competency for building successful technology companies, and it’s great to have one of the best playing on our team. Don’t just take my word for it, Wiley wrote a must-read post for sales teams on the Review just last month.

And as Wiley sets up shop in the New York office, General Partner Phin Barnes will be joining the team in San Francisco. A Californian at heart, he’s excited to be headed back, and we’re even more excited to continue growing our Silicon Valley presence to better serve our thriving community there.

Raising a new fund always gives our team the opportunity to reflect on what we’ve built and all the opportunities we and our Founders still have in front of us. Looking ahead, we continue to believe it’s a special time in history to Be A Founder, and with Fund V closed, we’re in a position to do much more.

Now we just have to figure out what we’re doing for this year’s holiday video...

Graduation Day

From the moment he stepped on UPenn’s campus as a freshman, Dan Shipper knew that he wanted to learn how to build a real software business. Fast forward four short years. Today, he’s announcing the sale of his first company, Firefly, to Pegaystems.

Firefly was founded two years ago to enable “co-browsing,” allowing people to share and see only what is on someone else’s browser, not their entire screen. It’s become an indispensable collaboration tool for small businesses and large enterprises alike.

We couldn’t be more proud to work with Dan and his team. Both he and the company have played a meaningful role in our community from the start. In 2012, Firefly was the very first investment of our Dorm Room Fund, kicking off a program that has since expanded to four cities and funded dozens of other entrepreneurial students.  And they are now the Dorm Room Fund's first exit.  Personally, I've enjoyed the time I’ve gotten to spend with Dan as a thought partner, mentor and friend. With today’s news, I’m sure he’ll be in high demand as a mentor himself — he’s already a terrific example for students who want to shape technology and the world.

When I say this, I’m not just talking about Dan’s professional success. He’s a role model in many other ways. Even when he had his pick of job opportunities as early as his sophomore year, he committed to staying in school, and didn’t give up on the idea of building something as a student. As a former student entrepreneur myself, I know how challenging this decision can be, and what it’s like to choose the hard road.

Dan is one of those people who isn’t remotely interested in the easy road. He’d rather be learning — both by reading as much as he can, and soliciting input from everyone around him. When we’d meet up, he’d come prepared with a long list of topics and questions to discuss. He wasn’t just concerned with present needs and problems — he was already thinking several moves ahead. Actively seeking feedback is one of the most valuable qualities founders can have, especially young entrepreneurs who have yet to weather their own successes and failures. Dan never balked at declaring himself a beginner, and it became one of his strengths.

Whenever he did learn something new or discovered something that worked, Dan would share it with others. He started his blog in 2011 to chronicle his journey, and today it is filled with lessons, observations, experiments and findings that others can apply to build companies of their own. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re an entrepreneur at any age. You’ll find something helpful there.

With Firefly, it was great to see Dan surround himself with equally dedicated, growth-oriented people. His co-founder Justin Meltzer was literally always in the First Round Philadelphia office. Seriously. For a while, I thought he slept here. Together, they’ve made a formidable team, constantly improving the product and better serving their customers.  (And occasionally setting off our office alarm at 2 in the morning).

It’s always nice to see good things happen to good people.

While Dan and Justin both recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, the education that they’ve gotten building Firefly and navigating the M&A process with Pegasystems is truly enviable. In the past two years, they developed expertise in product development, marketing, sales, hiring, and fundraising that’s comparable to what most people learn over the course of a career.

Of course we’ll miss them around our Philly office — but we can’t wait for them to start their next company so we can work with them again.

Be a Founder

Each year First Round Capital interacts with over 3,000 founders.  These are amazing people – people who will shape our society and our lives.  Every product you use, every store you visit, every restaurant you eat in – all of these things exist because a founder had an idea (and the perseverance to turn the idea into reality).

 

For the last year, every founder who has entered one of the three First Round Capital offices has been offered a free “Be A Founder” T-shirt.  We believe that the world needs more founders – and that founders (not venture capitalists) should be celebrated.  That’s why our annual holiday videos showcase the founders in our community.   Our First Round Review provides real-world tactical advice to make founders more successful.   And that’s why we’ve worked hard to build a culture at First Round Capital that recognizes (and appreciates) the unique role that founders play in the world.

 

One of the people who has helped build that culture at First Round Capital for almost six years has been Kent Goldman.  Kent joined our team  right after we raised our first institutional fund -- and has played a pivotal role in our growth and development.  He’s helped us reimagine how a venture capital firm could work to help founders win.  He’s introduced well over a dozen amazing companies into our community – companies that are having a big impact on the world (and on our results).  And a few months ago Kent told me that after spending almost six years helping founders – he wanted to be a founder, by starting his own fund.

 

In the coming months, Kent will be announcing his plans publicly.  But from what he’s shared with me, I’m excited for him.  He’s carrying on First Round’s values of community and innovation in a way that is uniquely his own -- and I plan to make a significant personal investment in his fund.  All of us at First Round Capital are thrilled for Kent – and will miss his energy, his insight, and his passion.  But we understand the allure of “being a founder” – and we wish Kent the best of luck and look forward to working together with him in his new fund.

On Data Persistence...and Confide

Over the last several years, as the cost of storage dropped (and the power of “big data” analytics has grown) the online industry has viewed data persistence as a critical feature.  Google’s Gmail proclaims that you don’t have to “waste time deleting messages” and that the “Gmail way” is to “go for years without deleting a single message.”  Online storage services such as Dropbox, Box, Egnyte and Bitcasa all make it very easy to retain your documents without worrying about running out of space.

My partners and I have been thinking about data persistence for years.  (In fact, my partner Rob chose to name his blog “Permanent Record” over six years ago - reflecting the empty threat that school principals invoked).  But watching Snapchat create a $3B company on the back of ephemeral messaging  -- messaging that is intentionally not persistent – has been eye-opening.   danah boyd, a senior researcher at Microsoft has a great point when she said that apps like Snapchat “challenge the assumption that persistence is the right default and raises questions about when and where people don't want persistence.  Given the privacy rhetoric...a persistence-by-default-minded assumption is that anyone who doesn't want their data to be persistent has something to hide.”  Yet, she argues, that is not the case for most users.  Instead, ephemeral messages allow users to communicate without clutter – allowing people to communicate more authentically and freely.

Over the last several weeks my partners and I have been playing with a new app called Confide (much more on Confide below) and have begun to wonder whether we will begin to see more products where limited data persistence is a feature.  

• While I didn’t attend CES this year, I read with interest about the realization that cars are now collecting information about drivers (Are they wearing their seatbelt?  Are they going 75 miles per hour?  Where do they drive to?) – and the growing debate on how those records are stored and used.     It didn’t help when Ford Motor Company’s top sales executive told a panel at CES: “We know everyone who breaks the law. We know when you’re doing it. We have GPS in your car, so we know what you’re doing.”

• Last week, DuckDuckGo (a Philly-area company!) announced that queries to their search engine increased by 250% (to over 1B) in 2013.  The main reason for this growth is because they do not retain any search history (unlike Google which retains records of every web search a user performs when they are logged into a Google account).

What’s taken me some time to realize is that ephemeral content doesn’t equate to illicit or illegal activity.   Almost every Fortune 500 company has a records retention policy – identifying what messages should be saved and what messages should be deleted.  Just because a company has a policy to delete records doesn’t mean they are doing anything illegal.  Just as the fact that Google Chairman Eric Schmidt chooses to ignore the “Gmail way” and deletes his old emails “as quickly as possible” does not mean that he’s done anything wrong.   Just like every company that purchases a shredder is not Arthur Anderson.

For years Facebook has given users the choice of who gets to see a specific message – as a user, they give me the option of seeing who gets to view every update I post.  I also think that it is reasonable for a service to allow a user to set how long every message should persist.

People intuitively understand that different communication mediums are used for different audiences.  When someone says “I’d rather discuss this in person” that doesn’t mean they are conspiring to conduct illegal business.  But rather, that some in-person discussions allow you to be more blunt, more transparent, more candid and more human than digital discussions allow.  Almost every US President in the last 20 years has fallen victim to a “hot microphone” – where their conversation intended for a small audience was broadcast to a larger audience via a live microphone.  It’s very clear that they communicate differently in public than they do in private.  And I think that one of the problems of digital communications today is that every email is like a hot mike – you have no idea who will ultimately see it.  As a result, people tend to be far more guarded in their digital communications than they are in person.  (With the exception of Governor Christie’s staff – who have seem to have no problem communicating transparently in email).

That is why my partners and I are so intrigued by the recent launch of Confide.  While Snapchat targets young consumers (the vast majority of their users are under 25), Confide is an ephemeral messaging app for enterprise.  When you are able to be certain that your message is only going to be seen by your intended recipient -- and it is not persistent – I think you are far more likely to be transparent and direct.  I know that I often spend a lot of time editing/refining emails and adding context – not because I’m concerned about how the recipient will take it, but because I want to make sure I add enough context so that the email conveys my authentic beliefs in case it gets forwarded to other people.

Many companies have had problems with their internal messages, documents and dashboards being leaked externally.   And as a result, companies have to be extremely guarded in what information gets distributed electronically.  Non-persistent messaging won’t eliminate all of these events from occurring, but it can facilitate an environment where companies are more willing to share information with their teams – and become more transparent.

We’ve recently started using Confide internally at First Round and I’ve already have seen more candid/transparent communication.  And that is something I hope persists.

2904 days ago...

Today:  

Aggregate Knowledge announced it's acquisition by Neustar for $119M.    All of us at First Round Capital are super-excited for Dave Jacobowski, the founders (Paul Martino and Chris Law) and the entire AK team.   It is particularly poignent for me, because I was just getting started in the venture business -- and this was one of our first investments from First Round Capital.  

 

2,904 days ago:  I wrote Paul the email below...

 

  -----Original Message-----

From: Josh Kopelman
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 11:45 AM
To: Paul Martino
Subject: Aggregate Knowledge

Paul –

Howard Morgan recently forwarded me your email about Aggregate Knowledge.  Howard and I are partners in a seed-stage fund that invests in early-stage technology companies.  I don’t believe we’ve met, but I’ve heard wonderful things about you from several folks.  I, like you, am a serial entrepreneur and have been an active angel investor over the last few year, with investments in LinkedIn, Del.icio.us, Riya/Ojos, Flock, IronPort, LiveOps and others.

I was particularly intrigued to learn about Aggregate Knowledge.  Over the last year or so I’ve been thinking about the difference between “explicit” and “implicit” actions – and how they impact online navigation.  I believe that while explicit actions (like tagging, bookmarking, entering in a query) clearly add immense value to users, there could be even more value derived from mining implicit activities (where did people go after they read this article, where did people go after they researched prices for a used honda accord at KelleyBlueBook.com, etc).  In addition, I also have been thinking about metaphors for using this knowledge to help web users before they ask for it (ie, why force users to search for information – what if there was a persistent tool in the browser that recommended sites based on your current navigation path).

Maybe I’m reading my thoughts into your venture – but it definitely sounded like we were on similar paths.  Howard and I are very interested in participating in your current angel round – so much so that if we were meeting in person, I would slide a check across the table right now.  Since I can’t do that I thought I’d do the next best thing.  Attached is our “virtual check” – just tell me where to send the original ;-).  

I understand you are heading off on your honeymoon (congratulations, by the way) – but I would love an opportunity to participate.  (us “Philly Boys” need to stick together).  I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Josh

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul J. Martino [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 3:10 AM
Subject: Aggregate Knowledge

 

Friends,

 

We wanted to let you know that we have started a new company: Aggregate Knowledge (www.aggregateknowledge.com). Our goal is to deliver the best content to people based on the aggregate behavior of everyone who has gone before them. We think that the wisdom of crowds can help people get at the best of all the information that's out there. Our website doesn't have much information yet, but will soon.

 We are still very early in our company's life cycle. Currently, we are closing a small "friends and family" round of funding and thank those of you who are participating. Our goal is to do an institutional round in the spring.

 As many of you know, we previously launched WSFinder, a wiki-based directory of web services and APIs that people are using to create mash-ups. This was the starting point of our analysis of the web services landscape and marked the beginning of our goal to understand what was happening in the Web 2.0 world. The insights gained are driving much of the thinking behind Aggregate Knowledge.

WSRelater is the first web service that we are offering. It is an Amazon style "people who liked this, also liked that" engine that anyone can add to their website with a few hours of work. Since the engine is implemented as a web service, all sites that use the service can contribute to the aggregate knowledge database. We are pursuing direct applications of this technology with companies that are selling goods online and want to incorporate this functionality to their browsing experience.

 The WSRelater service is in "Alpha" mode. We will move from Alpha mode once we have good feedback from a few experimenters about the service and move to more production ready hardware. The API for this service and its documentation are online at www.wsrelater.com. Please send us any feedback.

 There are two things that we are asking our friends for assistance with in the short term.

 1.    If you know of a great sales / business development person that can help us knock on a few doors we'd love to meet them. Media and/or retail Biz Dev experience is really what we are looking for.

2.    If you have a site and would like to participate in the alpha of the recommendation service please let us know!

We are targeting a January unveiling of our first consumer facingservice.

This new service will leverage the WSRelater engine to create a compelling user retention solution for media portals. You will hear more about this at the beginning of the year.

We will keep you posted.

Paul Martino and Chris Law

Some Context on Cover

Today we’re excited to “take the cover” off our latest investment – Cover.  Cover is a context-aware Android app that automatically recognizes the places you spend time (home, work, car), learns which apps you use in those places, and puts them on your lockscreen for easy access.  While this sounds simple, we think it’s extremely powerful because the company is harnessing the power of two important trends:

First, we believe that context will be an increasingly important element of the mobile experience.   One of our early investments, Uber, for example, was one of the early apps to take advantage of a very simple contextual-layer (location).  Today we see an increasing number of opportunities to leverage context – so that, ultimately, you have a phone that seamlessly changes based on a user’s surroundings.  Google Now is an early example of an app that leverages context (through software) to enhance value.  And we’re already seeing companies begin to build context detection into hardware (like the MotoX and the M7 coprocessor of the Apple A7 chip).  

We expect contextual awareness to proliferate all all layers of the stack -- and Cover is one of the first stand-alone startups that is 100% focused on context.  Their product today learns when and where you use different apps, using your location as well as the day of week/hour of day (for example, you might use stocks/weather in the morning, and watch Netflix at night. You might use Foursquare/Yelp more on the weekends, etc). Your home and work are recognized through a combination of geo-fencing, wifi networks, and cell towers. Car detection is built using low-power sensors (no GPS) so it doesn’t drain your battery.  (Watch their video here to see Cover in action).

And contextual computing gets even more exciting when you add the “wisdom of the crowd” into the mix.  If everyone who walks into a movie theater puts their phone on vibrate, wouldn’t it be neat if your phone could automagically do the same – even if you’ve never been to the that specific theater before?

The second trend that Cover is harnessing is the power of Android.  We believe now is the right time to bet on Android.   A few reasons why:

• Android phones have really improved in the last two years.  The first Android phone I used was the Google Nexus One – and it was really lacking.  However, I’ve been using the Samsung S4 recently – and have really been impressed with it.  It’s really fast, and the ability to customize the phone has actually made it easier to use.   I see why David Pogue called it a “rival to the iPhone.”  And I’ve heard even better things about the HTC One.
   
• The market for Android has become immense.  Android captured 80% of the smartphone market last quarter (while iOS hit a new low of 14%).  And while there still is a big monetization gap between Android and iPhone, I believe that gap will close over time due to the staggering volume of billions of Android phones and nicer Android phones coming out – resulting in more high-end users switching to Android.  The hardware has now caught up – and as innovation moves to software over the next few years, Android developers stand to benefit.
  
  
• The Android developer toolset has really improved in the last year.  Apple has had Xcode (Apple’s integrated development environment for iOS) for years.  Yet Android announced an officially-supported IDE (Android Studio) just five months ago. Google has been rapidly developing Android Studio, with over 20 new releases since May.  As more developer tools are built to make it easier to develop on Android, I believe you will see an increase in the number (and quality) of Android apps.
   
• Even Android’s infamous “fragmentation” is getting less severe.  The vast majority of Android phones are now running Gingerbread or above, and Jellybean is approaching 50% of the market. That means that developers are benefitting from a more mature platform without the complexities that characterized early versions of Android (and though Gingerbread itself is complex, it is now reasonably well-understood and documented).

We are super-excited to work with the Cover team.  The founders have run massively successful projects at Facebook, Google and Yahoo – and they are building an incredible team of Android engineers.  Unlike most companies (who have just one or two Android engineers) the Cover team understands Android down to the metal.

We’re thrilled to welcome them to the First Round Capital community.  If you use an Android phone, be sure to join the waitlist for Cover here – it’s worth it.

Why Real Food Works

Today I’m excited to announce First Round Capital’s investment in Real Food Works -- a Philadelphia-based company that offers subscription-based programs for home delivered meals.  The company’s goal is to improve health by helping people to eat a real food diet for both weight loss and healthy living. Customers have an online portal where they manage their account and select meals.  And weight-loss customers have weekly coaching sessions and track their behavior and results and interact with the company through an online portal.

The magic of their business model is the supply chain. The company uses local restaurants (and their excess capacity) to produce the food. Each dish is the restaurants' own creation, tailored to fit within stringent nutritional specifications. They create delicious dishes that contain all whole foods — and nothing processed or artificial, no dairy, and very little added fat, salt, and sweeteners. Each plan provides customers with meals from a variety of restaurants each week.

Personally, I’m excited about our investment here for a few reasons:

• First, as someone who’s been trying to avoid wheat and dairy for the last few years, I’ve had firsthand experiences with the challenges of finding quality food to  accommodate a restricted diet.  With Real Food Works customers don’t need to make a trade-off between good-tasting food and healthy food.
• Second, in addition to First Round Capital’s investment, Real Food Works is the first investment from the StartupPHL seed fund (a public/private venture fund that we run in partnership with the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation to increase the availability of investment capital for Philadelphia-based startups).  In fact, Real Food Works moved their offices to the city of Philadelphia as a result of the StartupPHL investment.
  
  
• Third, it’s great to be working with the company’s founder, Lucinda Duncalfe, again.   I’ve known Lucinda for almost 20 years – and have invested in several companies she’s led (including Turntide – which was acquired by Symantec in 2004).  I’m thrilled to be working with her again on this project.

They currently service the Philadelphia-area  – so if you live in the region, please give it a try.  It’s a great way to save time, lose weight and eat healthy!  Or, feel free to join them for one of their free Farm Table Lunches!

Six months in Philly

It’s been a little over six months since we moved our headquarters into the city of Philadelphia.  And boy has a lot happened since then:

• We announced the Dorm Room Fund here in Philadelphia.  We received interest from over 700 students to serve on the investment committee.  We selected 11 students.  And they have already begun to make investments at a rapid pace!  So far they’ve committed over $150K for investment into 8 companies founded by Philadelphia-area students. We’re so happy with the traction that we’re seeing here in Philadelphia, that we’re even expanding the Dorm Room Fund to other cities.
• We’ve hired over a dozen interns from Penn and Drexel, including six Portfolio Consultants – who have completed over 30 consulting engagements for our portfolio in the last month!
• We’ve hosted thousands of people at dozens of events in our new space.  These events help bring us closer to the Philadelphia tech ecosystem.  From meetings to help plan Philly Tech Week, to Open Angel Forum meetings, to Startup Corps weekly mentorship meetings, to Girl Develop It Philadelphia meetings, to Good Company Ventures Investor Day -- we’ve met some really incredible people. 
• And in the last six months we’ve been thrilled to see other investors step up to support Philadelphia entrepreneurs.  Goldman Sachs committed $10 million in loans to Philadelphia startups.  Blackstone (in partnership with Temple University, Philadelphia University, and the University City Science Center) announced a $3M LaunchPad program to provide mentorship and venture consultation to entrepreneurs, Drexel University unveiled plans for a new fund --  Drexel Ventures  -- which will provide seed funding for technology startups.  The University of Pennsylvania Healthcare System, Blue Cross and DreamIt Ventures teamed up to launch DreamIt Health – an accelerator that provides investment, mentoring, and customer-access to healthcare entrepreneurs.  And we’ve been approached by several suburban venture firms who are contemplating moving to the city!

Finally, today we are excited to announce that First Round Capital has been selected by the City of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) to manage the Startup PHL Seed Fund, a new fund announced by Mayor Michael Nutter to increase the availability of investment capital for Philadelphia-based startups.  This fund will be a co-investment fund – where the PIDC has allocated $3 million to be invested alongside $3 million from First Round Capital in qualified, Philadelphia-based startups.  We’re hoping that this fund will result in more companies starting – and staying – in Philadelphia. 

It’s been a busy six months – and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next six!

First Round Capital is Hiring: Platform Experience and Operations Manager

First Round Capital is an entirely new kind of venture firm built from the ground up to help the world's best entrepreneurs build better companies.   One of our key tools to deliver on this promise is crafting incredible in person experiences for the entrepreneurs we work with – it's something we now do over 50 times per year.  We're creating a new role at First Round, a Platform Experience and Operations Manager, to help us take these events to the next level, continue to innovate and create experiences we haven't even thought of yet – and build systems and process to allow our entire Platform team to scale.

As a Platform Experience and Operations Manager you will be responsible for running and innovating on all aspects of our in person experiences that range from intimate dinners with the most influential names in technology through CEO and CTO Summit, our internal conferences that bring together the leadership teams from our 170+ companies.  You will have the opportunity to work with the entire First Round team as well as directly with the founders and companies in our portfolio.  In addition, you'll help our 7 person Platform team scale through innovative systems and processes.  This team includes business development, recruiting, learning and research.

The qualities we care most about:

• Relentlessly resourceful – you need to be able to see a project from idea stage through successful completion – and whatever it takes to make it a success. You're looking for an opportunity to take on huge responsibility and grow in a high velocity work environment.
• Get things done – this role will require you to get an incredible amount of work done in very short time periods.  We bias towards action.
• Curious – you're interested in learning new things and can learn very quickly.
• Pixel perfect – in everything we do, we try to bring care and thoughtfulness to our work.  So while the big ideas matter – we care deeply about the details.
• No ego – you're willing to do anything and the phrase "that's not my job" is not something you'd ever say.  Ever.
• Passion for technology – everyone on our team is passionate about technology, startups and company construction – and you need to be too.

We're looking for someone with anywhere from 0-3 years of professional experience.  The position is based out of our San Francisco office.

If you're interested in joining First Round and helping us turn venture capital upside down – email [email protected] with 3 specific examples of when you were relentlessly resourceful and your résumé.