Charlie O'DonnellNew York, New York, United States
Bio
Charlie O'Donnell has been an active member of the NYC startup community for nearly 20 years, with a reputation of being the most accessible early stage investor in New York. After being hired as the first analyst at Union Square Ventures and helping to open First Round Capital's first NYC office as a Principal, he founded Brooklyn Bridge Ventures in 2012. He helped source First Round's investments in GroupMe (acq. by Skype), SinglePlatform (acq. by Constant Contact), Moat (acq. by Oracle) and Backupify (acq. by Datto).
Brooklyn Bridge Ventures has made over 70 investments since it was founded, making it one of the most active funds investing in pre-seed and seed rounds in the city. It often leads or co-leads, investing in a wide variety of startups founded by a diverse pool of founders including The Wing, Petal, Clubhouse, Hungryroot, Canary, goTenna and Imagen, among others. The fund was the first to be launched in Brooklyn--where he was born and raised.
Charlie is one of only a dozen individuals to be named to Business Insider's 100 Most Influential People in NY Tech 5x or more. He served on the founding board of the New York Tech Meetup and is one of the group's first 100 members. His blog, This is Going to Be BIG!, is one of the ten most widely read VC blogs in the country. He has spoken at SXSW and Techcrunch Disrupt.
Charlie started his career at General Motors Asset Management's Private Equity Group (now Performance Equity), where he analyzed late stage VC investments, buyouts and secondary fund investments. He co-led two secondary portfolio transactions totaling over $100+ million in value.
A NYC native, Charlie has taught entrepreneurship and various other business and technology courses at Fordham University and NYU-Poly. He competes in triathlons, bikes to work, and founded the Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse--a free kayaking program on the East River.
Social
Experience
Founder and General Partner
Brooklyn Bridge Ventures
Jan 2012 - Current
Brooklyn Bridge Ventures manages $38 million across three funds, leading or co-leading investments of around $400,000 in New York City companies that have yet to raise $750,000 in prior rounds. BBV is the first venture capital fund based in Brooklyn, NY. Conversations often start pre-product and pre-deck.
Board Member/Co-Founder
Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse
Jan 2010 - Current
The Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse is a public kayaking and rowing program run out of the new Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Founder
nextNY
Feb 2006 - Current
Founded nextNY, a fun way to connect both socially and professionally with young people who have a stake in future of tech and new media in New York City. Participants generally have less than ten years experience and we especially welcome recent graduates who are just starting their careers.
Adjunct Professor
NYU-Poly
Jun 2013 - Aug 2013
Teaching DM9103C Media Technology Entrepreneurship.
Principal
First Round Capital
Nov 2010 - Jan 2012
Board Observer on Backupify (Board Member until $4.5 mil raise)
Board Member/Observer on chloe + isabel
Board Observer on Salescrunch
Board Observer on SinglePlatform
Board Observer on Refinery29
Board Member on Docracy
Chief Evangelizing Investor (unofficial) for GroupMe
Friend to all FRC Portfolio Companies
Entrepreneur-in-Residence
First Round Capital
Oct 2009 - Nov 2010
Evaluating venture investment opportunities in early stage technology companies in New York City. Establishing a more substantive New York presence for FRC, including a more permanent office.
EIR (Entrepreneur-in-Residence)
ITAC
Feb 2008 - Sep 2009
Helping ITAC build on FastTrac and other programs that they've offered entrepreneurs for 10+ years in order to become a premiere destination for NYC startups looking to build their businesses.
CEO/co-founder
Path 101
Aug 2007 - Oct 2009
Path101 aims to be the go to place for career discovery, goal setting, and success for college students. It will provide a paced, easy to use, and fun experience that helps students learn about their opportunity set, as well as build and leverage their network.
We are actively seeking dedicated and passionate development talent.
Director of Consumer Products
Oddcast
Jul 2006 - Jun 2007
- Responsible for Voki consumer avatar platform. (www.voki.com). Voki enables users to express themselves on the web in their own voice using a talking Flash-based character.
- Created product vision, functional specifications, and initial business and marketing strategy.
- Coordinated the company's technical and creative resources to help get the product from idea to launch.
Adjunct Professor
Fordham University
May 2005 - Dec 2012
I have designed and taught several graduate and undergraduate level courses including: Introduction to Business Blogging, Management for the MySpace Generation, and Innovation and the Entrepreneurial Mindset.
Analyst
Union Square Ventures
Feb 2005 - Jul 2006
- Help screen new business opportunities in the IT-enabled services space
- Research active deals by performing competition analysis
- Maintain financial models
- Track industry trends and help proactively seek out new opportunities
- Streamline and innovate related to our investment process and team collaboration
Investment Analyst, Private Markets
General Motors Asset Management
Feb 2001 - Feb 2005
- First undergraduate analyst hired by private markets business unit.
- Responsible for portfolio analytics and research for $5.5 billion private equity portfolio of venture capital, global buyouts, distressed and mezzanine debt.
- Led efforts to apply more quantitative approaches to private market portfolio analytics and reporting.
- Co-led secondary investment team that sourced, valued, and executed $500 million in secondary purchases of venture, buyout and mezzanine limited partnership interests.
- Provided analytical support to multiple investment deal teams responsible for due diligence of both partnership and direct investments.
Education
Regis High School
-Fordham University
BS, FinanceInfoThis public profile is provided courtesy of Clay. All information found here is in the public domain.