Stewards
Venture Partners
Meet Ed Zimmerman, named Venture Capital Lawyer of the Year
Ed Zimmerman
Founding Partner, First Close Partners
ED co-founded and Chairs the Tech Group at law firm Lowenstein Sandler. He has been named Venture Capital Lawyer of the Year for New York and one of America’s top 25 venture capital lawyers. He has taught Venture Capital at Columbia Business School since 2005.
Ed has invested in 160+ startups 200 VC funds across the globe. He co-founded First Close Partners and VentureCrush. Ed currently serves as a Wall Street Journal Expert Panelist, publishing 80 columns on tech startups and growth companies. Ed has for many years, advocated social justice and racial and gender equity.
Key Dates
1991
Ed began work at Lowenstein Sandler LLP (law firm in NYC) where, several years later (in the 1990s) founded the Tech Group/Emerging Companies/Venture Capital team at Lowenstein Sandler
1995
Ed began teaching at Rutgers Law School, where (in the late 1990s) courses taught included Startup law/Internet Law
2000
Ed Co-Founded and led the first VentureCrush event. We believe the VentureCrush event series to be the longest continuously running Tech/VC/Startup events in the NYC area (and, perhaps, the US’s East Coast).
2005
Ed began teaching Venture Capital & Angel Investing to MBAs at Columbia Business School
2013
Ed published an article in the Wall Street Journal (and a companion case study at Columbia University) pointing out that Venture Capital in America was problematically non-diverse (89% white, 87% male, 52% had degrees from the same 10 schools).
February 2014
Ed co-organized at the White House (with the Obama White House's Liaison for LGBTQ matters) a summit of LGBTQIA+ leaders in tech and VC. Also at VentureCrush that year, Ed separately announced a pledge against gender bias in tech, which he published on The Wall Street Journal's Accelerators page, with subsequent coverage in Fortune magazine.
2020
Ed co-founded First Close Partners, a venture capital fund of funds investing (across the globe) in VC funds owned and operated by underrepresented VCs. FCP has invested in > 100 venture funds across the globe.
