FirstMark Capital: Venture leaders in the worldÕs business capital. When potential investors look at you, what do they see? An entrepreneur? At FirstMark Capital, we see more than that. We see a leader and an innovator. We see the potential you see in yourself. We see an opportunity to turn your ambition into brilliance. The way we see it, we're doing more than investing. We're creating the next big name in emerging technology: yours. FirstMark Capital works with visionary leaders, seeking exceptional ideas which have the capacity to become world class companies. Together, we fuel innovation. We make the first mark on our portfolio companies, and in turn, they will make the first mark on their industry. FirstMark has 12 investment professionals with broad industry-specific expertise. We are at the forefront of the most rapidly-evolving industries: media, advertising, financial services, retail and telecom. We are one of the largest venture firms in New York City and we are integrated into the entrepreneurial and leadership fabric of NYC. Some of our select visionary leaders include: Steve Hansen, CEO, weplay; Mark Dumas, CEO, SPADAC; Patrick Lo, CEO, Netgear; David Kidder, CEO, Clickable; Mitch Davis, CEO, Live Gamer; Seth Besmertnick, CEO, Conductor; Kunal Sarkar, CEO, Lumos Labs; Barry Silbert, CEO, SecondMarket. We have seeded or funded hundreds of exceptional ideas in our thirteen year history. Some of these ideas Ð now market-leading companies Ð include: weplay, Clickable, Conductor, SPADAC, SecondMarket, Live Gamer, IMImobile, Dovetail Insurance, Riot Games, Eagle Eye Analytics, Tectura, Lumosity, Duck Creek Technologies, Reflexis, Saba Software and Ibiquity. We work hand in hand with the leadership teams of our exceptional portfolio of companies over the course of months or years, turning many of them into world class enterprises who will make a long term impact on their industries and generating superior risk-adjusted returns for our investors. Some of our greatest successes include: Netegrity, acquired by CA, Netgear (NASDAQ: NTGR), which completed an Initial Public Offering in 2003; NASDAQ: NTGR), StubHub! acquired by eBay, Outlooksoft, acquired by SAP, Analex Corporation, acquired by QinetiQ and Celiant, acquired by Andrew Corp. Recent investments in FirstMark IV, L.P. include:

Venture leaders in the world's business capital

When potential investors look at you, what do they see? An entrepreneur? At FirstMark Capital, we see more than that. We see a leader and an innovator. We see the potential you see in yourself. We see an opportunity to turn your ambition into brilliance. The way we see it, we're doing more than investing. We're creating the next big name in emerging technology: yours.

 

Portfolio Spotlight

Riot Games (Tencent)

China's Tencent Buys Riot Games for $400 Million

Read More »

Shopify

Shopify Announces $15 Million Series B Funding

Read More »

SecondMarket

Valued At $200 Million After Investment

Read More »

Thank You!

To our Entrepreneurs and Friends,

We are excited to let you know we have closed our newest fund, FirstMark V, at $225MM. This is slightly larger than our prior vehicle of $200MM, and keeps us true to the mission of early stage technology venture capital with a focused fund and strategy. We were very encouraged by the reception we received.

This new fund could not have happened without our entrepreneurs inviting us...

Read More »

To our Entrepreneurs and Friends,

We are excited to let you know we have closed our newest fund, FirstMark V, at $225MM. This is slightly larger than our prior vehicle of approximately $200MM, and keeps us true to the mission of early stage technology venture capital with a focused fund and strategy. We were very encouraged by the reception we received.

This new fund could not have happened without our entrepreneurs inviting us into their companies and allowing us to join in the mission of building incredibly transformative, world changing companies. It could not have happened without the support of a wonderful staff and group of venture partners mentoring our companies. And it certainly could not have happened without the continued support of our new and existing LPs. In an uncertain time, your belief in the power of innovation fuels transformative businesses...

  • ...Like Riot Games, which launched and quickly became one of the top 3 most actively played online games across the world (and acquired by Tencent this year);
  • ...Like Knewton, which just announced a new round of funding and a major new partnership with Pearson, to bring the incredible power of adaptive and personalized learning to the classroom;
  • ...Like Pinterest, whose elegant idea of creating a place to easily save and share the things you love has turned into a consumer Internet phenomenon and named one of Time's 50 Best Websites of 2011;
  • ...Like SecondMarket, which is seeking to transform the capital formation process, and put "the Street" back in the hands of the entrepreneurs committed to building their companies for the long term;
  • ...Like Lumosity, which has been rapidly advancing its impactful mission to ensure our minds remain as sharp as possible;
  • ...Like Boomi, which pioneered the concept of connecting applications together in the cloud, and was bought by DELL;
  • ...Like Shopify, which is democratizing e-commerce and bringing it to the masses in the same way blogs democratized publishing;
  • ...And like many more exciting companies including Aereo, Aveksa, Conductor, Clickable, Lot18, LiveGamer, Tapad and others!

This past year we have continued on our mission to service you with the best level of support we can, from our CEO Summit to the Marketing Summit, from our FirstOn program to spending time with families at our Summer Picnic, to the office hours we hosted with experts ranging from senior Amazon architects to Google AdWords Ninjas. We will continue to launch innovative new programming over the coming year and will work tirelessly to aid in any way we can.

We will also continue our tireless support of the NYC ecosystem. We think it's one of the best places in the world to build a company and getting stronger each day due to the efforts of many of you. This year, we co-chaired the Ingenuity conference to showcase the best companies in NYC, successfully helped launch the NYC Turing Fellows to bring more engineers to the City, taught and encouraged NYU undergrads to become entrepreneurs and join startups, invested in and mentored at TechStars, spoke and spent time at General Assembly, sponsored numerous conferences and events, and tried to make a real impact in building a vibrant local community. We will continue the mission!

Finally, we'd like to welcome some of the new companies already part of FirstMark V.... Greenphire, LollyWollyDoodle, NewsCred, Dashlane and Meteor. You are joining a wonderful family and we can't wait until you get to know everyone!


Thank You!

 

We're Hiring!

FirstMark Capital is an early stage technology venture capital firm based in NYC. FirstMark launched in 2008 to invest behind visionary entrepreneurs who are creating new markets or disrupting old ones with a fresh approach. We take a partnership-driven, long-journey approach and have made our singular goal to ease the frictions for our entrepreneurs as they build large, impactful businesses.

Our current portfolio consists of over 40 companies, including market leaders such as SecondMarket, Pinterest, Knewton, Lot18, Lumosity, and Shopify to younger, emerging companies like Aereo, Tapad, Jirafe, LollyWollyDoodle, NewsCred, Meteor Entertainment and more. We have been fortunate to work with the incredible entrepreneurs at Riot Games (acquired by Tencent), Boomi (acquired by DELL), and SPADAC (acquired by GeoEye). Select historical investments include Duck Creek Technologies (Acquired by Accenture); Netgear (NASDAQ: NTGR); StubHub (Acquired by eBay); Netegrity (Acquired by CA); OutlookSoft (Acquired by SAP); and Navic Networks (Acquired by Microsoft).

Position: Director of Community, FirstMark Capital

Description: The Director of Community (DC) position is a newly created, pivotal position that sits at the intersection of our portfolio companies and the deep institutional relationships of the firm to create maximum impact amongst the portfolio.

Process: We are using TakeTheInterview as our preliminary assessment tool. This consists of a 10 minute video interview, along with submission of relevant links to your social media accounts and an online link to your resume. Click here or on the button below to be taken to the interview landing page. Note that signing up to TakeTheInterview does not automatically begin the interview. Please review the below responsbilities and qualifications before applying.

Take the Interview

We plan on reviewing responses weekly and will begin scheduling in-person interviews on a rolling basis. Our goal is to narrow down an initial round of candidates prior to the holidays.

Responsibilities:

In addition to the above, the DC is expected to be a participant in and contributor to all existing and new investment related discussions.

The role is a pre-MBA role with a minimum two year commitment. The successful candidate will most likely choose to join a portfolio company or another venture firm, pursue a graduate degree, or potentially start his or her own company following completion of the role. This is a unique opportunity to learn from the triumphs and pitfalls of some of the best entrepreneurs prior to continuing with one's endeavors. We are open to evolution and/or extension of the role depending on performance and success.

Qualifications:

Please send any questions to jobs@firstmarkcap.com.