Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner,Angel

Investor Stage

Seed

Rob joined First Round as a Partner in 2006, opening up the firm's San Francisco office. Over the past eight years, he has led investments in companies such as Mint.com (acquired by Intuit), Gnip (acquired by Twitter), Square, Uber, and Planet Labs.

Rob invests across categories, with his interests spanning financial tech, the sharing economy, meal delivery, and consumer hardware. He is constantly exploring new areas, and enjoys working with founders who push the boundaries of existing markets.

Prior to joining First Round, Rob became the first venture investor at Omidyar Network, the investment firm started by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. While there, he led most of the initial venture capital deals and later built and ran the technology investing group.

Before that, Rob worked at Palm, where he product managed Palm OS during the heyday of Palm products (Palm III, Palm V, Handspring Treo). He also started the company's corporate venture fund and managed the strategic spinoff of PalmSource.

Rob lives with his wife and two daughters in San Francisco. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking at home and traveling up and down the California coast with his family and two dogs. He has an MBA from Columbia University and a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.