
Josh is a founding Partner at First Round Capital, a seed-stage technology venture fund. Josh has been an active entrepreneur and investor in the Internet industry since its commercialization. In 1992, while he was a student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Josh co-founded Infonautics Corporation – and took it public on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 1996. Josh founded Half.com in July of 1999, and led it to become one of the largest sellers of used books, movies and music in the world. Half.com was acquired by eBay in July 2000 -- and Josh remained with eBay for three years, running the Half.com business unit and growing eBay’s Media marketplace to almost half a billion dollars in annual gross merchandise sales. In late 2003 Josh helped to found TurnTide, an anti-spam company that created the world's first anti-spam router. TurnTide was acquired by Symantec just six months later. Josh founded First Round Capital in 2004 to reinvent seed-stage investing. And since that time the firm has invested in over 350 emerging technology startups – becoming one of the most active venture capital firms in the country. Josh was ranked 3rd on the 2018 New York Times list of Top Venture Capitalists and consistently ranks in the top 20 of the Forbes Midas List of the top 100 tech investors. Josh has been named as one of the top ten ‘angel investors’ in the United States by Newsweek magazine, one of "Tech's New Kingmakers" by Business 2.0 magazine and a "Rising VC Star" by Fortune magazine. Josh also is the proud winner of a second place ribbon in the 2011 Nantucket Watermelon Eating competition. Josh is an inventor on sixteen U.S. Patents for his work in Internet technology. In June 2000, he was awarded Ernst and Young’s prestigious “Entrepreneur of the Year” award for the Greater Philadelphia region. Josh earned a Bachelor of Science degree cum laude in Entrepreneurial Management and Marketing from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
firstround.com
linkedin.com
radial.com
fivebelow.com
ebayinc.com
inquirer.com
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Founder and Partner
First Round Capital
• www.linkedin.com/company/first-round-capital
Oct 2004 - Present
Chairman Emeritus
The Philadelphia Inquirer
• www.linkedin.com/company/philadelphiainquirer
Jun 2024 - Present
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Chairman of the Board
The Philadelphia Inquirer
• www.linkedin.com/company/philadelphiainquirer
May 2016 - Jun 2024
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Director
The Philadelphia Inquirer
• www.linkedin.com/company/philadelphiainquirer
Mar 2015 - May 2016
Founding Partner
First Close Partners
• www.linkedin.com/company/first-close-partners
Jan 2020 - Present
Co-founder and Trustee
The Kopelman Foundation
• www.linkedin.com/company/the-kopelman-foundation
Nov 2001 - Present
Founding Chairman, Board of Directors
TurnTide
Feb 2004 - Jul 2004