Kim Folsom came up through the engineering ranks in the 80s and 90s before founding the first of six companies, three of which successfully exited. Today, she is the founder and CEO at Founders First Capital Partners, a San Diego startup investment firm that uses a non-traditional approach to funding called revenue-based investment to invest in historically underrepresented founders.
Unlike most Silicon Valley VC firms, Founders First isn’t looking for the next unicorn. Instead, Folsom seeks out founders from historically underrepresented backgrounds — women, people of color, LBGTQ, veterans — with solid ideas and decent, if not spectacular, revenue and growth who have had trouble getting external investment to help build their businesses.
She focuses on B2B companies, usually in tech, that have a product and some wraparound services to go with it that you could turn into recurring subscription revenue. And with the additional help from Founders, coaching and guidance transform the b …
