When Josh Kopelman and i started First Round Capital in late 2004, we viewed it as an extension of the investing we had been doing for a while. Nurturing great entrepreneurs and interesting ideas in the new environment, one of capital efficient startups. Part of our shared style was being location agnostic - we wanted to work with the best entrepreneurs, whether they were in the Philadelphia area we called home, in the Bay area, or anywhere else in the US. It was not a great surprise to either of us that more than half our deals were California based - necessitating more than 20 trips a year for each of us, and leading to Josh's widely read and aptly title blog RedEyeVC. To help in evaluating all the Bay area deal flow, we opened a San Francisco office, ably led by our Partner Rob Hayes.
I have always spent a fair amount of time in my native city of New York, and helped David Rose when the New York Angels was founded early in this decade. So it was only natural that we tried to see as many New York deals as we could. In fact, we've now got more than 10 companies that are based in the NY area. We've finally decided to formalize that, and ease the Amtrak redeye equivalent (6:30am Ben Franklin from Philadelphia) by opening a New York office of First Round Capital. I'll spend a lot of time there, but continue working from the Conshohocken office as well - and don't see cutting down on CA trips. My partner Chris Fralic, and Phin Barnes will also spend time in the NY office.
I'm excited to announce that we've added one of New York's best known entrepreneurial community members, Charlie O'Donnell as our first full time Entrepreneur in Residence. Charlie has been very influential in creating and nurturing the infrastructure for startups in NY. He's helped create events where budding entrepreneurs, startup talent, angels, venture capitalists and the other service providers that make for a vibrant startup community have gotten together to share ideas, tips and moral support. And he is an entrepreneur in his own right.
New York is seeing a surge in new company creation, fed by this environment and a growing number of experienced high tech and digital media savvy people in this great city. First Round is proud to become a resident member of this community.
What wonderful news! You have always been the dean of the New York early stage community, and First Round has always been the most active and important New York VC...that wasn't in New York! But now all is right with the world, you've got the 100% EIR in Charlie O'Donnell, and only spectacular things can result from all this.
Congratulations to you, Charlie, Josh, Chris, Phin and the whole rest of the team. I'm looking forward to working with all of you even more closely!
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