Josh Kopelman

Founded

Kopelman co-founded Infonautics in 1992 while a sophomore at the Wharton School. Kopelman founded Half.com in 1999 and sold it to eBay in 2000 for $300 million. Kopelman co-founded TurnTide, an anti-spam technology company acquired by Symantec within six months. Kopelman co-founded First Round Capital in 2004.

Education

Studied at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (BS, Entrepreneurial Management and Marketing, 1993)

Boards

Kopelman served as chairman of the board of The Philadelphia Inquirer from 2016 to 2024, then became chair emeritus.

Charities

In 2001, Kopelman and his wife created the Kopelman Foundation, a nonprofit providing start-up grants to social entrepreneurs. In 2002, the Kopelman Foundation funded a project to digitize and host the complete text of the Jewish Encyclopedia online. IRS-derived records identify the Kopelman Foundation, EIN 23-3096766, as a Gladwyne private foundation. Secondary grant analysis reports education/youth, health, Philadelphia and Jewish-cause support; grant totals belong to the foundation, not Kopelman's personal annual giving.

Communities

Dorm Room Fund began as a First Round-sponsored student-run pilot, while StartupPHL was a public-private city/PIDC/First Round effort. Program outcomes are collective and should not be credited solely to Kopelman.

Awards

Kopelman ranked 3rd on the New York Times list of Top Venture Capitalists in 2008. Kopelman was named one of 'Tech's New Kingmakers' by Business 2.0 magazine in 2007. Kopelman was named a 'Rising VC Star' by Fortune magazine in 2008. Kopelman was named one of the top ten angel investors in the United States by Newsweek in 2014. Kopelman received Ernst and Young's 'Entrepreneur of the Year' award for the Greater Philadelphia region in June 2000. First Round reports the June 2000 Ernst & Young Greater Philadelphia Entrepreneur of the Year award. Fortune named him among eight rising VC stars in 2008. Archival/secondary records support repeated Forbes Midas appearances, including No. 4 in 2015 and No. 89 in 2025; rankings are editorial recognition, not audited returns.

Hobbies

Kopelman won a second place ribbon in the 2011 Nantucket Watermelon Eating competition.

Family

Kopelman married Rena Cohen, an attorney, in 1995 and they have two children. Kopelman grew up in Great Neck, New York, the son of Carol and Dr. Richard Kopelman. A contemporary notice records his August 1995 marriage to Rena Marcy Cohen, also a Penn graduate then pursuing Villanova J.D./M.B.A. degrees. Reputable profiles say they have two children, but no private identities or details are included. His official biography's watermelon-eating ribbon is public humor, not a professional credential.

More

Kopelman is an inventor on multiple U.S. patents for his work in internet technology. A contemporary marriage notice identifies him as the son of Carol and Dr. Richard Kopelman of Great Neck, Long Island; his father was a Baruch College business and management professor and his mother an associate real-estate broker. The notice establishes that he was 24 in August 1995, implying 1970 or 1971, but not an exact birth date. In May 1996 Infonautics sold 2.25 million Class A shares at $14 and received approximately $28.7 million net. The filing documents company proceeds, not Kopelman's liquidity; later corporate failure means the IPO should not be treated as an unqualified founder win. Kopelman says he weathered boom-and-bust cycles and sleepless nights before layoffs. Infonautics' later delisting and 2001 asset outcome contextualize the IPO, but no reviewed primary source allocates individual responsibility for its decline. eBay completed the acquisition July 11, 2000. Announced consideration was 4.6-5.5 million eBay shares and later reporting uses values from roughly $313 million to $355 million. These are transaction values, not Kopelman's proceeds. Symantec confirmed an all-cash acquisition finalized July 8, 2004, roughly six months after TurnTide's formation. The amount is company consideration, not Kopelman's proceeds. The October 2004 deck proposed a $7 million fund with $3.5 million for initial investments and $3.5 million reserves, technology nationwide, and Kopelman and Howard Morgan as the team. Kopelman later said Yale's 2007 commitment anchored the first institutional fund. Kopelman says First Round invested in more than five companies that were valued above $1 billion on their way to zero. He does not name them in the interview; this is firm-wide loss evidence, not a list of Kopelman-led write-offs. In a first-person interview he discussed being priced out of the seed rounds for Twitter and Dropbox. Secondary synthesis reports First Round declined a later invitation into Twitter after its lower offer lost; exact terms should remain interview-level rather than reconstructed as a personal missed return. First Round's 2013 announcement directly carries Kopelman's byline and Roche completed the acquisition in 2018. Flatiron remained a separate legal entity; $1.9 billion is fully diluted transaction value, not First Round or Kopelman proceeds. During his eight-year chair tenure, the newspaper transitioned to nonprofit ownership, hired its first female publisher and faced a racial reckoning over staff diversity and coverage. The Lenfest Institute is a non-controlling owner and the newspaper remains a for-profit public benefit corporation. First Round currently says 13 U.S. patents; historical profiles and patent families can count differently. Patent records confirm inventions assigned to Infonautics and eBay, including online co-marketing and electronic-goods marketplace systems; no claim is made that each patent remains active or solely invented by him.

From Josh's own website — common ground for a warm intro.

Intro paths

Intro paths

Intro paths

Co-founders at Clover Health

VG

Vivek GaripalliExecutive Officer, Director