Trekking Around With First Round
First Round Capital recently organized their first NYC Startup Trek, in part to commemorate the opening of their New York office this quarter and also explore the city’s incubator and co-working spaces. Partners from the early stage venture capital firm, which has already made investments in over a dozen NY-based companies, set out to meet with entrepreneurs and startups in their natural habitats to hear their ideas and discuss questions about technology, community, and investment. A couple of us out of LaunchSquad NY joined the trek and orchestrated some publicity around the event.
The day started at the NYU Poly Incubator at 160 Varick and followed with visits to Sunshine Suites, TechSpaces, New Work City and The Incubator at Rose Tech Ventures – a total of 8 different spaces throughout the day. What resonated most about the trek was the attitude towards First Round – many of the over 100 companies we visited were surprised and delighted at FRC’s grassroots approach to make themselves more available and approachable, seeking out the City’s most promising startups where they already are.
The trek ended at last week’s monthly New York Tech Meetup, where Charlie O’Donnell, FRC’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence, got up on stage for a few minutes to talk about the trek and play this video that we put together:
Read more of the great coverage in the Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch blog, CenterNetworks, and Charlie’s personal blog.
For background info on First Round Capital from Managing Partner Josh Kopelman, check out this video from Allen Stern: