Josh Kopelman

Last updated
Josh Kopelman
Josh Kopelman photo.jpg
NationalityAmerican
Education University of Pennsylvania (B.S.)
Alma mater Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
Occupations
  • Entrepreneur
  • Venture capitalist
  • Philanthropist
Known forFounder of Half.com
SpouseRena Cohen
Children2
Parent(s)Carol and Dr. Richard Kopelman

Joshua Kopelman is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist.

Contents

Kopelman was the founder of First Round Capital, a pioneering seed-stage venture fund that led the seed round in Uber. Kopelman has consistently been ranked as one of the world's top 20 venture capitalists. Before founding first round, he was a founder of Half.com, a fixed price marketplace connecting buyers and sellers of used books, movies, and music products. In 2000, Kopelman sold Half.com to eBay.

Early life and education

Kopelman grew up in Great Neck, New York on Long Island, the son of Carol and Dr. Richard Kopelman. [1] His father was a professor at Baruch College and his mother a real estate broker. [1]

He attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, [1] graduating in 1993. [2] In 1992, during his sophomore year at the Wharton School, Kopelman co-founded Infonautics, based in Wayne, Pennsylvania. [1]

Career

Kopelman in 2008 Josh Kopelman.jpg
Kopelman in 2008
Kopelman in 2016 TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016 - Day 1 (26846434301) (cropped).jpg
Kopelman in 2016

In 1996, Infonautics went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Three years later, in 1999, Kopelman left Infonautics to found Half.com. [3] After selling Half.com to eBay, Kopelman remained with eBay for three years.

In 2004, Kopelman co-founded TurnTide, an anti-spam technology company that was acquired by Symantec. [4]

In 2007, Kopelman helped to coin the phrase the "implicit web" to describe the Semantic Web. [5]

Kopelman is an inventor on 16 U.S. patents for his work in internet technology. [6]

Kopelman is currently managing director of First Round Capital, a seed-stage venture fund. He is an investor, director, and advisor to OnDeck Capital, Flatiron Health, Aster Data Systems, Knewton, Gigya, AltSchool, The Black Tux, Five Below, Massdrop, Like.com, IronPort, Mint.com, Monetate, LinkedIn, ModCloth, AppNexus, BankSimple, Swipely, True & Co., Wanelo, Warby Parker, Ring.com, Numerai, OpenX, LiveOps, Boxed.com, Clover Health, Upstart and Discourse. [7]

Recognition

In 2008, Kopelman ranked 3rd on the New York Times list of Top Venture Capitalists [8] and has ranked in the top 20 of the Forbes Midas List of the top 100 tech investors, including 18th in 2011, [9] 6th in 2012, [10] 12th in 2013, [11] 11th in 2014, [12] 4th in 2015, [13] 6th in 2016, [14] 35th in 2017, [15] 19th in 2018, [16] 39th in 2019, [17] and 79th in 2020. [18]

In 2007, Kopelman was named one of "Tech's New Kingmakers" by Business 2.0 magazine, [19] as a "Rising VC Star" by Fortune magazine in 2008, [20] [21] and as one of the top ten angel investors in the United States by Newsweek in 2014. [21]

Personal life

In 1995, Kopelman married Rena Cohen, an attorney, in Great Neck, New York. [1] In 2001, he and his wife created the Kopelman Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic organization to provide start-up grants to social entrepreneurs. [22]

In 2002, the Kopelman Foundation funded a project to digitize and host the complete text of the Jewish Encyclopedia online.

In 2016, he was elected chairman of the board of directors of The Philadelphia Inquirer . [23]

Kopelman currently lives in a suburb of Philadelphia, with his wife and two children. [24]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venture capital</span> Form of private-equity financing

Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are often from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Draper Fisher Jurvetson</span> American venture capital firm

Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) is an American venture capital firm. In January 2019, DFJ Venture, the early-stage team, spun out and formed Threshold Ventures. DFJ Growth continues to be managed by co-founder John Fisher and co-founders Mark Bailey, Randy Glein, and Barry Schuler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Moritz</span> Welsh businessman (born 1954)

Sir Michael Jonathan Moritz is a Welsh-born American billionaire venture capitalist, philanthropist, author, and former journalist. Moritz works for Sequoia Capital, wrote the first history of Apple Inc., The Little Kingdom, and authored Going for Broke: Lee Iacocca's Battle to Save Chrysler. Previously, Moritz was a staff writer at Time magazine and a member of the board of directors of Google. He studied at the University of Oxford and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and went on to found Technologic Partners before becoming a venture capitalist in the 1980s. Moritz was named as the No. 1 venture capitalist on the Forbes Midas List in 2006 and 2007.

The Forbes Midas list is the annual ranking by Forbes magazine of the most influential and best-performing venture capital investors. Described by Kara Swisher as the "Oscars for venture capitalists in tech," the Midas List uses parameters that include the first-day market capitalization of IPOs and the opinions of a panel of experts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Index Ventures</span> European worldwide venture capital firm

Index Ventures is a European venture capital firm with dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, investing in technology-enabled companies with a focus on e-commerce, fintech, mobility, gaming, infrastructure/AI, and security. Since its founding in 1996, the firm has invested in a number of companies and raised approximately $5.6 billion. Index Venture partners appear frequently on Forbes’ Midas List of the top tech investors in Europe and Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danny Rimer</span>

Danny Rimer OBE is a partner at Index Ventures, a global venture capital firm founded in Geneva in 1992. Rimer opened the firm's London office in 2002 and its San Francisco office in 2012. He has become a leading voice on venture capital in Silicon Valley and Europe, and has been actively involved in various philanthropic and cultural activities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Volpi</span>

Michelangelo "Mike" Volpi is an Italian-American businessman and venture capitalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard L. Morgan</span> American businessperson (born 1945)

Howard Lee Morgan is an American venture capitalist, philanthropist, angel investor, author, and contributor to Business Insider. He also serves as the chairman, CEO, director, board member or advisor for an assortment of companies including B Cap Group, Arca Group, Idealab, and Math for America. He has been listed on the Forbes 2009 list of Executives and Directors, was ranked #12 on CouldAve's Top 30 Most Respected Venture Capitalist for 2011 and #1 in Philadelphia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Fenton (venture capitalist)</span> American venture capitalist

Peter Fenton is an American venture capitalist based in Silicon Valley. He is a general partner at Benchmark, a venture capital firm. Fenton has steadily worked his way up the Forbes Midas List of the 100 top technology investors, starting at no. 94 in 2007, then rising to no. 62 in 2008 and no. 50 in 2009. Fenton was ranked no. 4 when Forbes resumed publishing its Midas List in 2011 and was described as the "most productive venture capitalist on our list". In 2012, Fenton was ranked no. 5 on the Forbes Midas List and was no. 2 in 2015. He has been a perennial member on the Midas List since 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neil Rimer</span> Swiss-Canadian venture capitalist

Neil Rimer is a Swiss-Canadian venture capitalist who is the founding partner at Index Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in Europe, the United States, and Israel. He is also the co-chair of the board of directors at Human Rights Watch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aileen Lee</span> American investor

Aileen Lee is a U.S. venture capital angel investor and co-founder of Cowboy Ventures.

Women in venture capital or VC are investors who provide venture capital funding to startups. Women make up a small fraction of the venture capital private equity workforce. A widely used source for tracking the number of women in venture capital is the Midas List which has been published by Forbes since 2001. Research from Women in VC, a global community of women venture investors, shows that the percentage of female VC partners is just shy of 5 percent.

Josh Stein is an American businessman and venture capitalist. He is a managing partner at Threshold Ventures and was featured in the Forbes Midas List in 2013, 2014 and 2015 in recognition of his accomplishments as an investor. He was also the recipient of the 2015 Deloitte Fast 500 Venture Capitalist of the Year award. Stein holds board responsibilities at Box (company), Chartbeat, LaunchDarkley, LendKey, Lumity, and Talkdesk—and led Box’s first round of institutional investment. He is also an investor in AngelList, Doximity, Front, Loftium, Periscope Data acquired by Sisense, and Rippling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Garry Tan</span> American venture capitalist (1981– )

Garry Tan is an American venture capitalist and executive who is the CEO of Y Combinator and a founder of Initialized Capital. He previously co-founded Posterous and Posthaven. He was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, and previously a partner at Y Combinator. Tan is also known for his engagement in San Francisco politics, both as a commenter on social media and as a political donor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infonautics</span> Information services company

Infonautics was an information services company, founded in 1992 by Marvin Weinberger, Lawrence Husick, and Josh Kopelman, and had its headquarters in Wayne, Pennsylvania, United States. It was a spin-out from Telebase, Inc., which retained a minority position in the company. The company's executives included Van Morris (CEO), Ram Mohan (COO/CTO), Frederica O'Brien (CFO), and Gerard Lewis. Israel J. Melman was also a co-founder, a mentor to Marvin Weinberger and served on the boards of both Telebase and Infonautics, where he was also Chairman of the Board.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theresia Gouw</span>

Theresia Gouw is an entrepreneur and venture capital investor in the technology sector. She worked at Bain & Company, Release Software and Accel Partners before co-founding Aspect Ventures, a female-led venture capital firm, in 2014. Gouw was named one of the 40 most influential minds in tech by Time Magazine. and has been recognized seven times on the Forbes Midas List as one of the "world's smartest tech investors". According to Forbes, Gouw is the richest female venture capitalist, with a net worth of approximately $500 million, primarily due to her involvement with Accel (company)'s early investment in Facebook.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenny Lee (venture capitalist)</span> Singaporean venture capitalist

Jenny Lee is a Singaporean venture capitalist and Senior Managing Partner of Granite Asia based in Singapore. Lee was the first woman venture capitalist to break into the top 10 of Forbes Midas List in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freestyle Capital</span> Venture capital firm

Freestyle Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. General Partners Dave Samuel and Jenny Lefcourt are both entrepreneurs who entered venture capital after founding multiple companies. The firm was founded in 2009 and typically invests in 10-12 companies per year with an average investment between $1.5 million to $3 million. Previous investments include Intercom, Patreon, Narvar, Digit, Betterup, Airtable and Snapdocs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pear VC</span> Seed-stage venture firm

Pear VC is a seed-stage venture firm based in Menlo Park, California. It was founded by Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson in 2013. Pear VC works with early-stage companies. The company was originally based in Palo Alto, California before relocating to Menlo Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pejman Nozad</span> Iranian-American venture capitalist

Pejman Nozad is an Iranian-American venture capitalist known for co-founding Pear VC and Amidzad Partners. He is also a former radio host and professional soccer player. He was ranked in the 15th spot in Forbes' annual Midas List in 2021 and also 2022. He was #1 on the seed investors list in 2024.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 New York Times: "Rena M. Cohen, Joshua Kopelman" August 13, 1995
  2. ↑ "Alumni Leaders at Wharton". Undergraduate.
  3. ↑ "Infonautics' players: What are they up to?". bizjournals.com. 2003-04-28. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  4. ↑ "TurnTide's tale a rare example". bizjournals.com. 2004-07-26. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  5. ↑ "Friday Q&A: Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital". technical.ly. 2010-04-23. Retrieved 2019-01-10.
  6. ↑ "List of Patents" . Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  7. ↑ "On civilized discourse". 8 February 2013. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  8. ↑ Nicas, Jack (15 April 2018). "NY Times VC List". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 April 2018.
  9. ↑ "Forbes Midas List" (PDF). 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  10. ↑ "Forbes Midas List" (PDF). 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  11. ↑ "Forbes Midas List" (PDF). 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  12. ↑ "Forbes Midas List" (PDF). 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  13. ↑ "Forbes Midas List" (PDF). 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  14. ↑ "Forbes Midas List" (PDF). 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  15. ↑ "Forbes Midas List" (PDF). 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  16. ↑ "Forbes Midas List" (PDF). 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2018. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
  17. ↑ "Forbes Midas List" (PDF). 2019. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-06-10.
  18. ↑ "The Midas List 2020". Forbes. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  19. ↑ "Business 2.0 Magazine - Tech's new Kingmakers" . Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  20. ↑ "Fortune Magazine - 8 rising VC stars" . Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  21. 1 2 "FRC Biography". Archived from the original on 29 May 2014. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  22. ↑ Jessica Endy (12 October 2012). "Federation to Recognize Local Communal Leaders". Jewish Exponent. Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  23. ↑ Jeff Gammage (1 June 2016). "Josh Kopelman replaces Gerry Lenfest as PMN chair". Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  24. ↑ "Josh Kopelman". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.