About Liz
Liz is a Partner at First Round Capital, where she invests in early stage founders and companies across all industries. Prior to that, Liz was a Visiting Group Partner at Y Combinator (“YC”), the leading startup accelerator and investor, where she invested in and helped great founders build great companies. Prior to joining YC, Liz was Co-Founder and CEO of WayUp, an early career recruitment platform used by 6+ million candidates (71% of whom self-identify as underrepresented) and thousands of employers, which she founded at age 23. WayUp raised over $40M and after 7 years, merged with Yello, another recruitment software platform (at the time of Liz’s departure, the business was ~200 employees).
Prior to WayUp, Liz was part of the APMM program at Google, where she worked in Product & Brand Marketing — first in Mountain View, then for a year in India. Before Google, Liz graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), where she studied Political Science, Math and Japanese while also starting businesses and clubs on the side (such as PennEats/UniEats).
Liz has been featured in various publications, from Forbes 30 Under 30, to Business Insider’s “18 Coolest Women in Silicon Valley”, to NY Business Journal’s “Influential Women” list. She’s also been a featured speaker at TEDx, Advertising Week, TechCrunch Disrupt, SXSW, and on CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox, and much more. She’s also interviewed leaders like Jim Cramer, Adena Friedman, and many more.
Liz is 34 years old and is married to Matt Ross — they have a daughter named Noa, and a second (furry) daughter (cavapoo) named Trooper. With her free time, Liz enjoys traveling, volunteering (with organizations like Step Up Tutoring), hiking, and investing in / advising startups.