Drew Volpe is founding partner of First Star Ventures, a Boston-based, seed/pre-seed fund investing with conviction in visionary, technical founders inventing a better future. Prior to moving into venture capital, Drew was an accomplished entrepreneur and technologist. Most recently, he was the founding VP of Product Development for conversational AI startup Semantic Machines. He cofounded Locately and, as CTO, led the development of its location-based analytics technology from founding through successful acquisition. Prior to Locately, Drew was Director of Product Development at Endeca Technologies, a pioneer in search and unstructured database systems, acquired by Oracle for >$1 billion. Drew is an active speaker and mentor for startups at MassChallenge, Techstars, MIT, Harvard, and other innovation centers. Drew holds an AB in Computer Science from Harvard University.

First Star partners with entrepreneurs solving real-world problems using new computing technologies including AI/ML, blockchain, comp bio, connected sensors, and AR/VR. We invest across North America at the earliest stages of a startup, often before it's incorporated.

Jellyfish, Oculii, PlusOne Robotics, Seven Bridges, Skynet Labs (Sia), nplex biosciences