Chris Fralic

Board Partner, First Round Capital · 1 appearance on the record.

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investoroperatorexecutive@chrisfralic ↗LinkedIn ↗firstround.com ↗

Chris Fralic is a Board Partner at First Round Capital, known for leading early investments in Roblox, Ring, and Warby Parker. Prior to venture capital, he held business development leadership roles at Half.com, eBay, and del.icio.us.

15statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 4.33/5average certainty → 1.8/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 6said about them ↓

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 1 assertion · 3 insights · 10 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertion are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Chris argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Fralic: Altos Ventures owned ~24% of Roblox at its public debut

“When Roblox went public, Altos owned about 24% of the company”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 28:54 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

How they sound: speaking style how? →

227 words/min while actually speaking · 1.1 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Chris Fralic: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 28 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 4,581 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Chris Fralic is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 3/10

pushed back at the host 1/10

setup questions received 26%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 18:46“Do you think that the oversupply of capital today has helped you You and FRC more, or hurt you more?” ▶ 7:12“How do you determine when to pay up versus when to stay disciplined, and how do you think about your own relationship to price?” ▶ 16:03“Can I ask a tough one, which is like, when you have companies like Roblox, which do fundamentally change the game in so many ways, how do you prevent past successes or failures inf…”

What they said15 What others said6 Episodes1

Everything Chris Fralic said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight

Fralic: Increasing Early-Stage VC Ownership Post-Initial Round Is Way Harder

“I think it's way harder for everything you mentioned, and there's so much more capital that's around so many more firms. Again, like, I think Roblox was unique in being under the radar company for so long, whereas anything that's got traction and visibility wi…”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 11:29 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Fralic in 2021: The SPAC boom will end badly

“I think it'll go too far. You know, the SPAC Invasion of the SPACs. I think some of that will end badly. It's too much too quick, I believe, but in general, more public companies, more capital, more funds is good for us, and more importantly, for our companies…”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 20:41 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Disclosure

First Round passed on Roblox in 2008 at a $10M valuation

“We decided not to invest in January of 2008. A lot of it was based on the price. Your listeners might laugh, but a ten million dollar valuation seemed outrageous, was way out of our normal range back then, and the game really looked raw.”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 4:16 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Disclosure

First Round passed on Twitter over a $20M valuation limit

“Yeah, I think we might have been fortunate back in those days to have made a really poor investment decision, missed one of our biggest of all time, with Twitter. When we were all early users, we had an opportunity to invest at first round, and didn't, primari…”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 7:18 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Disclosure

First Round retained over 5% ownership in Roblox at direct listing

“Our initial investment was 500 K Roblox or so, and that was probably on the high end of an average investment. And we were starting to think about our best companies and opportunities. Where could we put more capital to work? How could we deploy more into the …”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 10:11 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Disclosure

Fralic: I did not share Baszucki's conviction on Roblox's eventual scale

“And to be honest, I didn't share that conviction all the time. I didn't think it could be as big as it is now, but I think he always did.”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 13:14 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Disclosure

First Round passed on Etsy due to Fralic's misplaced eBay confidence

“We had the opportunity to look at Etsy, and I was almost dismissive, or I just thought of it as this little niche of handmade goods or something, and I think I was jaded. I mean, I thought I knew so much from eBay that it kind of turned me off to the whole cat…”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 16:30 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Disclosure

Chris Fralic: First Round took secondary liquidity in Uber and Roblox early

“If you look at our investments in our two most notable returns with Uber and with Roblox, we had taken some capital off the table along the way at various points, Which made sense and drove great returns relative to that investment, and yet what was left was s…”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 22:28 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Insight

Fralic: Only a small percentage of startup board members truly add value

“If I look at all the board members I've seen in action, the number that are really adding value, really trusted partners of the CEO are in a small percentage. I think probably the, maybe the bulk are mostly harmless, or sometimes helpful, and they write checks…”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 27:33 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Insight

Xbox forced Roblox to prioritize game quality over quantity at launch

“In order to do that, they couldn't just open up all the millions of games that they have on Roblox that can look like YouTube in terms of almost too much choice, and Microsoft and Xbox forced them to have a very limited small number of games that were on that …”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 30:47 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Disclosure

Fralic: First Round invested $3M in Roblox at a $40M valuation

“We invested at about an eleven million dollar valuation when we first came in, and then we led around And put in about three million dollars at what was around a forty million dollar valuation, which was very high, but we could see the traction in the revenue,…”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 8:02 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Disclosure

First Round Capital's Second Fund Included Uber, Square, and Roblox

“It turns out that fund had Uber and Square and Roblox in it.”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 9:01 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Assertion Supported

Fralic: Altos Ventures owned ~24% of Roblox at its public debut

“When Roblox went public, Altos owned about 24% of the company”

Disclosure

First Round Capital invested in Roblox six months after initial pass

“About six months later, we were able to make our first small investment and then later on did a larger investment.”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 4:52 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

Disclosure

Fralic: Deployed $100M into ~75 companies over 15 years at First Round

“And then as an investor at first round for the last 15 years, I've deployed about a hundred million dollars in about 75 companies.”

Chris Fralic Apr 29, 2021 ▶ 26:53 20VC: The Roblox Memo: First Round's Chris Fralic on The 17 Year Journey to Build a $41BN Market Cap Company, Why It Is Way Harder To Increase Ownership Across Rounds Today & What Happens Post SPACMania

The other half of the tape: Chris Fralic's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 6 times in 5 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Phin Barnes 2 Harry Stebbings 2 Josh Kopelman 1 Clinton Foy 1