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First Round Capital
First Round Capital is a venture capital firm that invests early money in young startups, usually as their first outside backer.
First Round Capital is a venture capital firm — a professional money manager for startups. It raises money from wealthy individuals and institutions, then writes checks into very young companies, often before those companies have a finished product or any revenue. The "First Round" name is the business: it specializes in being the first outside investor, typically writing the first institutional check into a startup, usually at the seed stage.
The firm is best known for being early to some enormous companies. It invested in Uber in 2010, when the company was young and ride-hailing was a strange idea, and it was an early backer of Square-Block and Roblox. It also runs a large network for founders, including events and a platform where portfolio companies can share advice and hire from each other, which helps it win deals in a crowded market. Here is how the money works. First Round raises funds from limited partners, then uses that cash to buy ownership stakes in startups. Most startups fail, so the model relies on a few huge winners paying for everything else — one Uber can return an entire fund. The firm earns a management fee on the money it manages and keeps a share of the profits (a "carry"), typically around 20%. The founders and investors get paid only when startups are sold or go public. First Round was started in 2004 by Josh Kopelman, Howard Morgan, and Chris Fralic, and it was unusual at the time for focusing only on seed-stage investing rather than spreading across every stage. That focus became the firm's brand. Its main competitors are other seed funds and the early-stage arms of big venture firms, all chasing the same small number of promising founders. Its edge is reputation, speed, and that founder network — founders talk, and a firm that treated them well gets the next call.
The risks are real. Venture returns depend on a handful of outcomes, and the seed market has gotten more crowded and more expensive as more money chases early deals. First Round is private, so it does not report revenue publicly; its results live in the performance of its funds and the startups it backs.
Saved answer · last researched 9 Nov 2026
BIG PICTURE
92% of venture capitalists call themselves hands-on helpers. Only 15% of founders call that help critical
- 15% Founders who rate VC help as critical
- 85% Founders who rate it lower
First Round makes its money by being an early backer and selling founders on its hands-on support, yet most founders in its own survey data shrug at that pitch. It puts real weight on the First Round Review, its free library of advice for building companies, because that is how a seed firm gets noticed before it writes a check. Source: First Round Capital State of Startups survey data, as reported by VC & Investing, data from 2026
Timeline
Two Investors Start First Round
In 2004, Josh Kopelman and Howard Morgan started First Round Capital with one focus: writing the very first check to a tech company. They felt the venture capital world had not kept up with how founders actually build companies, so they built a fund designed to help entrepreneurs at the earliest stage, when a dollar and some belief matter most.
The Tiny Cab Company in the Conference Room
A year later, First Round put a small seed check, about half a million dollars, into a little company called Uber-Cab, which worked out of the firm's own conference room until it outgrew the space. That stake later grew to be worth billions, a return of roughly five thousand times, and it showed the whole world why betting on startups at the very beginning could pay off enormously.
The Dorm Room Fund
The seed bet had worked, so First Round pushed its idea even earlier in the year 2012 by creating the Dorm Room Fund, which invests in startups run by students. This extended the firm's strategy to founders before they had even graduated, catching them while they were still figuring things out.
The Review for Startups
Soon after, Josh Kopelman launched the First Round Review, aiming to be the Harvard Business Review for startups, full of practical advice and free to read. Traffic to the firm's site rose tenfold, and the Review became a widely read channel that strengthened First Round's brand with founders.
The Graduate Fund
First Round kept reaching younger. In 2019 it launched the Graduate Fund, a pre-seed fund for people fresh out of undergraduate or master's programs, deepening the firm's pipeline into the earliest moments of a company's life.
Fund X
By 2026, First Round launched its tenth fund, Fund X, targeting about half a billion dollars and expected to bring the firm to roughly three billion in assets under management. The raise signaled confidence in its seed-to-growth strategy and gave it more firepower to stay competitive in areas like AI, climate tech, and digital health.