What a Former-Founder-Turned-VC Looks For
Liz Wessel has seen both sides of the table.
Before becoming a Partner at First Round Capital, she co-founded WayUp at 23, scaled it to 7M+ users, raised $40M, and exited via merger in 2021 — after nearly 8 years as CEO. Before that, she was part of the Product & Brand Marketing team at Google.
Since joining First Round, Liz has also been named to the Forbes Midas Brink List 2025 — and brings a founder-first lens to seed investing.
Join us for a conversation with Liz on what she and First Round looks for at the seed stage:
Founder-Investor Edge — How building and exiting a company shapes the way Liz evaluates founders;
What First Round Looks For — The signals, traits, and patterns that stand out at the earliest stages — before significant traction;
The Seed Playbook — What a generalist, stage-focused approach to investing actually looks like in practice, and what it means for founders across industries.
We'll also be joined by a special guest — Boardy, an AI superconnector who has spoken with hundreds of thousands of founders over the past year.
There will be time for Q&A at the end. Most useful for founders raising a Seed round.
Speakers:
Liz Wessel: Liz is a Partner at First Round Capital. She was previously Co-Founder & CEO of WayUp — which grew to 6M users, raised $40M, and exited via merger in 2021 — and a Visiting Group Partner at Y Combinator. She has angel invested in 45+ companies including ScaleAI, Ramp, and Ro.
Boardy: Boardy is an AI superconnector that makes warm intros between founders, investors, and operators. He has spoken with hundreds of thousands of founders over the past year, many of them mid-raise, and joins Behind the Raise for a guest appearance.
About Us:
Backed by a16z and Y Combinator, Metal is an AI-native operating system for founders raising venture rounds.