Liz Wessel

Liz Wessel

Partner

"As a founder, I lived and breathed my company for over seven years. I now work with founders who bring that same level of intensity — the individuals who will run through walls to overcome challenges, and who understand the problem they’re solving in a way that 99.9% of the population doesn’t."

7

Years as a founder

45

Companies backed as an angel investor (including Ramp, ScaleAI, and Ro)

7M+

People served by previous startup

I will work harder than any other investor on your cap table. That's a guarantee. Whether it's painstakingly reviewing every sales call recording together to fine-tune your customer pitch, interviewing candidates for your earliest go-to-market hires, doing fundraising pitch practices on weekends for your Series A, or anything else — I'll be there for every moment, big or small.

Liz Wessel joined First Round in 2023 as a Partner in the San Francisco office. She has a soft spot for companies reimagining old-school industries or that exist as a result of new or breakthrough technologies.

Liz spent most of her career as the co-founder and CEO of WayUp, an early-career recruitment platform used by over seven million candidates and thousands of companies. She launched WayUp in 2014 and ran it for seven years, during which time she raised over $40 million in venture and led the company through acquisition in 2021.

After WayUp and prior to joining First Round, Liz was a Visiting Group Partner at Y Combinator for several batches, where she worked with over 110 early-stage startups and coached founders on enterprise sales, B2B marketing, storytelling, and fundraising through back-to-back office hours sessions.

As an angel investor since 2016, Liz has backed over 45 startups at the earliest of stages, including Ramp, Scale AI, Ro, and Salient.

Liz graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor's in Political Science, Mathematics and Japanese.

SOME OF THE COMPANIES LIZ'S INVESTED IN:

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