Hot Potato

Called First Round for a reason. Your first money in is one thing. But so are your first hires, your first product and your first customers. They've helped Notion, Roblox, Uber, Square, and 300 others tackle these firsts and more. First round is building the world’s best product for founders who are just getting started.

Focuses on building and investing in the software and technology-enabled companies.

Over the past 28 years, RRE has become one of NYC’s oldest, largest, and most active venture capital firms. They have $2.5B AUM across 10 funds and 400+ portfolio companies. The firm recently raised their $250M Fund VIII.

Led by investors including Micah Rosenbloom, David Frankel & Eric Paley, Founder Collective is a seed-stage venture capital fund that helps entrepreneurs build their businesses.

We back ambitious founders who actively seek to change the status quo.

As a founder and partner at defy, and after more than two decades as a venture capitalist, I am inspired every day to help amazing entrepreneurs realize their dreams. My role is to serve as a confidant and help entrepreneurs build their teams, expand their networks, identify new customers, pull in revenue, solidify partnerships, and assist with future fundraises. Having sat on over 50 boards, I am committed to being my CEO’s most helpful and supportive board member and to bringing significantly more value than just the capital we invest. Prior to defy, I was a Managing Director at General Catalyst Partners for 11 years where in 2004 I joined a couple of years after the firm’s founding.

Kenneth Lerer is a Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau. He cofounded The Huffington Post and was the longtime Chairman of BuzzFeed. Ken serves as the Chairman of Blade and sits on the Board of Directors of Group Nine Media. He is also on the Board of nonprofits Bank Street College of Education and the Association to Benefit Children. He is a fan of CBD, drinks Sweet Reason, and uses Prima daily.

Ben Lerer is a Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau and the CEO of Group Nine Media, a digital media holding company consisting of Thrillist, NowThis, The Dodo, Seeker, and PopSugar. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Thrillist. He chairs the Board of Directors for Urban Upbound and is an Associate Member of the International Academy of DigitalArts & Sciences (IADAS). Ben sits on the Board of Directors for Casper and the Board of RaisedByUs. Ben previously worked at Group Nine Media as a Chief Executive Officer. He attended the University of Pennsylvania.

During his 21-year career as an investor, Will has served on the boards of more than 20 companies. He has been a leader in the transformation of the geospatial sector, most notably as Chairman of BlackSky (NYSE: BKSY) and as Lead Director of Spire (NYSE: SPIR). He is also a Director of Nanit, Paperless Post, Pattern, Pilot Fiber, Ursa, and Wave and a former Director of BuzzFeed (NASDAQ: BZFD). Will is also the Founder and Chairman of the Dockery Farms Foundation. From 2003 to 2018, Will served as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School where he taught a popular course on venture capital.

Addicted to early stage angel investing as he spends a lot of his time dreaming about what the future could look like and invest in people who do the same but are creating it.  Most of his successful investments have a common theme around job creation and flexibility. Invested in everything from rocket ships to sandwich delivery.

Dave is the Co-Founder & Managing Director of Offline Ventures. He was Founder & Partner Emeritus of Slow Ventures. He was the Co-Founder and CEO of Path which was acquired by Kakao in 2015. He co-founded Path with the mission of being a source of happiness, meaning, and connection through simplicity, quality, and privacy in technology and design. Path continues to serves tens of millions of people each month to this day.