Good Luck Charlie

After two years at First Round Capital, today Charlie O’Donnell announced he was leaving to launch his own seed-stage venture fund, Brooklyn Bridge Ventures - the first venture capital fund based in Brooklyn.  I’m really very excited for Charlie and can’t wait to see the impact his firm makes on the Brooklyn tech community.  When Charlie initially joined First Round Capital, we had both agreed that it would be for a one-year term.  After witnessing Charlie’s hustle and energy firsthand, we extended his position for a second year.  During his time at First Round, Charlie made a real impact -- helping us expand our New York presence (we now have an office on Union Square with three investment professionals – Howard, Chris and Phin), sourcing seven deals (including GroupMe, which was acquired by Skype), and placing over a dozen people in our portfolio companies.  On a personal level, I think that almost every blog post I wrote during the last year was a direct result of Charlie’s frequent barbs like “Hey, did you lose the password to your Typepad account?  How come you’re not blogging more.”

Ever since Charlie joined First Round Capital he and I have talked about his goal of starting his own firm one day – and I’m excited to see him take the plunge.  All of us at First Round wish him the best of luck and look forward to working together with him in his new fund.