United States · 
What does First Star invest in?
First Star invests most often at Seed and Series A (86% of the rounds on record), in sectors such as Mrna, Transcriptomics and Life Sciences.
First Star highlights
- 01
9 rounds on record
- 02
Mostly Seed and Series A: 86% of its rounds
- 03
1 exits from the portfolio
What they do
First Star is a pre-seed fund that backs visionary research-driven founders.From their own website
- Type
- VC firm (from a list, unverified)
- Cheque size
- $200K – $1.1M as they say
- Stages
- Pre-seedSeedSeries A
- Sectors
- MrnaTranscriptomicsLife Sciences
- Based in
- Cambridge, United States
- Cold pitches
- Accepted
The record
Every round we can evidence, newest first9 appearances
- 2025
1 round
- Jan
- 2019
1 round
- Nov
- 2018
1 round
- Sept
- 2015
2 rounds
- Aug
- Apr
- 2014
1 round
- Mar
- 2013
2 rounds
- Nov
- Jul
- 2012
1 round
- Apr
An announcement gives the size of the round, not the size of this investor's cheque: the only rounds that imply a cheque are those where they were the sole named investor.
The team
Named by the firm itself, on a filing, its Form ADV or its company registration2 named
AVAndrew VolpeManageriFiling they signed
RLRuiyi LiuManageriFiling they signed
We also hold 6 people at this firm from the lists this database was built from: a weaker source than the filings, since a list does not say when a title ended. Login to see them.
What they claim to have backed
From their own portfolio page (on their website)
19 of 33 we have independently watched raise
BedrockenergyBrinkCiscoEnpoweredExtellisGenialisGradientJellyfishNativevoiceNomicParallelwirelessPlusoneroboticsRobigoSaolaSwiftlyThronescienceTursoWinterlightlabsZanskarBotBrelleEnzymitGetenpoweredGetzepIorganPhaseshiftPlexresearchRomixbioSalientpredictionsScootscienceThekanaryTranquildataVistapath
Weaker than a round we watched, stronger than a list somebody sold us. A firm is far less willing to put a company on its own site that it never funded.
Exits from the portfolio
Companies it backed that were later bought or listed1 in all
WeathermobBought by WeathernewsUndisclosedMay 2015
An exit counts when it came after the firm's first round in the company. From historical deal records.