First Round Capital

First Round Capital is an American venture capital firm that specializes in providing seed-stage funding to technology companies. Founded in 2004 by Josh Kopelman and Howard Morgan it is considered to be one of the leading and most active early stage investing firms. First Round has invested in over 500 startups since its founding, including Roblox, Square, Notion, Looker, Verkada, Clay, Fal.ai, Together AI, K2 Space, Parallel, Omni, Pomelo, Reducto, and Rillet. It has offices in San Francisco, New York, and Philadelphia.

First Round Capital was founded in 2004 by Josh Kopelman and Howard Morgan. Kopelman had previously founded Half.com, which was acquired by eBay in 2000. Morgan helped found Idealab and served as Founding President of Renaissance Technologies.

The firm was established to focus exclusively on seed-stage investing at a time when most venture capital firms concentrated on later-stage deals. By 2009, Bloomberg reported that First Round had become the country’s most active seed-stage investor.

Morgan retired in 2017, while Kopelman remained as Managing Partner of the firm. He has been named to the Forbes Midas List of top technology investors multiple times, including a ranking of 4th in 2015, after leading First Round’s investments in Notion, Clover, AppNexus, and Flatiron Health.

In addition to Kopelman, First Round’s partners include Bill Trenchard, who joined in 2012 and has made the Midas List five times after leading investments in Looker, Verkada, and Flexport, Brett Berson, who started at First Round in 2008 as a college intern before being named a partner in 2016, Todd Jackson, who spent his career in product management at some of the biggest companies in tech, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Dropbox, Meka Asonye who joined in 2021 from Stripe and Liz Wessel, who joined in 2023 and was named to the Forbes Midas Brink List in 2025.

First Round was described by the Wall Street Journal as one of the most active US venture firms and maintains a generalist focus on investing across sectors including AI, consumer, enterprise software, fintech, hardware, and healthcare.

First Round was the first institutional investor in Uber, leading the company’s seed funding round in 2010 when the company was known as UberCab. According to The Wall Street Journal, First Round invested approximately $1.6 million in Uber’s first two funding rounds, which was worth about $2.5 billion at the time of the company’s 2019 IPO. That same fund contained the firm’s investments in Roblox and Square. The firm invested in Roblox in July 2009 holding approximately 6.8% of the company at the time of its 2021 direct listing.

First Round was also one of the earliest outside backers for Looker and led its $2 million seed round in April 2013. The data analytics company was acquired by Google for $2.6 billion in 2020. In 2013, First Round also invested in Notion, writing the biggest check in the productivity startup’s $2 million seed round in 2013.