The mechanics of sales may be automated away, but that was never the hard part. We want to find and train the next generation of sellers who excel at the uniquely human craft of sales (and aggressively use AI for all the rest), so we’re launching Sales Combine. Spend two days in SF for FREE training with extremely experienced sales leaders, and then we’ll introduce you directly to companies like @NotionHQ, @fal, @togethercompute, @p0, @reductoai, @Gumloop, @clay, & many others that are hiring new sellers. Apply by 10/3: firstround.com/sales-combine

If everything happening on this website today has you more curious about sales, apply to join @firstround Sales Combine and get in on the action.

In 2012, we posed a question at @firstround: "Students are gifted enough to create amazing companies. Why can't they be gifted enough to invest in those same companies?" The answer we landed on was Dorm Room Fund. What started as an experiment on Penn's campus (some of the early pitch is below) has grown into something far beyond what we imagined. That's largely because of the work of countless brilliant students and, of course, the relentless @themollette.

I was on @CNBC Squawk Box with one of our customers, @JackGretz, the CEO of @SeatGeek to talk about how they used Serval to eliminate the ticket backlog and redeploy their engineers as embedded business partners. ⚡ 50% of IT requests automated in first 60 days ⚡ 132 automations built in 8 weeks ⚡ Zero layoffs. Hiring this year already ahead of all of last year ⚡ IT time redeployed to solve harder problems When you automate the low-hanging tasks, the support requests and the password resets, you can take the most technical people in your organization and deploy them into work that's more productive than what they were doing before. Full clip below. 👇 @getserval

The @DormRoomFund family did it again! Proud to announce a fresh $50M Fund 2 and a new brand to keep backing the best student and recent grad/drop-out founders. My favorite part? 30% of our investors in Fund 2 are DRF alums and their firms. Read more: nytimes.com/2026/09/29/techn…

I wonder if the anxiety about the future of engineering is causing early career product and technical talent to consider a new path. Nearly 20% of all applicants to the Sales Combine come from either an engineering or product background. Still plenty of time to apply to join us!

Just four months since we co-led their Series A, @quartermasterai has grown its coverage by 77% and raised a preemptive $100M Series B from @insightpartners. Even for a software company, this pace would be very impressive, but @SobinNeil is doing it with hardware, out at sea, in incredibly volatile geopolitical conditions. Neil started Quartermaster with a simple premise: the only sensing network that can actually scale to the ocean is the one that's already on the ocean. This team is moving quickly, putting their SmartMast product on 650 working vessels from 25 countries. It very cleverly combines HD video, AI, radar, RF sensing, and AIS to turn working vessels already on the water into a live sensor network for the ocean’s surface. This increased visibility helps mariners of all types navigate congested waters and busy ports, avoid potential hazards, and call for help in an emergency. It also comes with tremendous built-in network effects that only become more valuable as they scale up. Neil has gone unreasonably deep on how all these different pieces of the business fit together, and we are so fortunate to be his partner here @firstround.

Over 3 years ago @paraga met with our team for an hour and made the case that AIs would become the largest consumers of the internet, and that the web would need to be rebuilt for them. At the time, "agents" didn't really exist as a category. GPT-4 had just been released. He called it almost perfectly. This was part of his deck.

Today we're excited to launch grants for @firstround's Sales Combine. For those who can't afford to come to San Francisco, not only is Sales Combine free, we'll now pick up the cost to get you here. If you're ambitious, competitive, kind, and curious, there's now no reason not to apply. More info here: firstround.com/sales-combine…

Epic update💰: Many of you who were interested in this program werent from SF. So, if the cost of getting here for the free training was holding you back, we’re now offering a limited # of grants to help cover the trip costs. More info here: firstround.com/sales-combine…

Generative media is blowing up. That’s the gist of Vol.2 of @fal’s State of Generative Media report, which just came out today. So much to dig into here ahead of their Generative Media Conference later this week, here’s a few findings that stood out to me: - The AI-native companies drove the first wave, but enterprise is now the fastest-growing segment on fal (grew more than 4x in 6 months) - 3D and spatial is the fastest growing modality at 163%. Images and video improved quickly, but 3D was hard to crack as it’s very complex, compute-heavy and unforgiving. By generating the underlying material data (the full set of PBR maps a renderer actually needs) rather than a flat picture of a surface, there have been massive improvements here (fal’s homegrown Patina model is a good example). - Embedded generation is also growing faster than standalone generation. Most people will never bother picking a model on their own. Object removal, virtual try on, extra product angles etc, will all be generated running inside tools people already use like Canva and Figma. - It’s more about what combo of small, fast, task-trained models you can chain together, vs. one single greatest model to rule them all. (@ailker has a good metaphor here: You wouldn’t expect a single person to have a Michelin star, an Oscar, and a World Cup trophy.) - As @OdinLovis writes, that is why there are around 1400 models on fal. Even the far less powerful ones can do something no other model can. They integrate roughly a model a day (!!)

@firstround’s new program Sales Combine is an amazing opportunity for new grads, career switchers, and folks in other functions in tech. More info here, apply by 10/3: firstround.com/sales-combine

A lot of ambitious, smart young people hear “sales” and picture someone pushy and coin operated: reading from a script, pretending to care, and saying whatever it takes to get a signature and collect a commission. That image has kept too many thoughtful, talented people from considering the profession. The best sellers I know are deeply curious. They understand how businesses work, ask thoughtful questions, and earn people’s trust. Above all, they help customers solve problems that matter. In a post AI world, this work has never been more important. We built First Round Sales Combine to bring more people like that into tech sales. It’s free: two days of training, followed by introductions to First Round companies that are hiring (@p0, @togethercompute, @clay, @getserval, @reductoai, @fal and many more) . No sales experience required. If you’ve never thought of yourself as a “salesperson,” take a look: First Round Sales Combine And apply here: firstround.com/sales-combine

Despite billboards and headlines claiming otherwise, demand for BDRs and AEs is going up. But finding truly excellent sellers to fill these roles is hard. We think some of the best talent isn't in sales — yet. We're launching Sales Combine to bring in a new generation of sellers who may not have the "right" resumes, offering free training and direct intros to companies like @NotionHQ, @p0, @fal, @togethercompute, @reductoai and more. firstround.com/sales-combine

We believe there has never been a better time to get into sales. AI has made the role even more valued and in demand. We're building a new program to bring the next generation of ambitious talent into sales, but today we're also sharing an essay that outlines sales fundamentals. The Craft of Sales: firstround.com/sales-craft

Great opportunity to learn sales and become an AE at some incredible AI companies

This is very smart. Free training to become a sales person and then placement into startups. Go @firstround 👏 Also, cute website UX! firstround.com/sales-combine

good on the folks @firstround

starting your career in sales is #verycool and if youre after one of those super ambiguous titles where no one knows what you do, sales is the best entry point. at the end of the day, every job becomes sales the more senior you get - love this from first round

I learned more about Sales in 3 days with Emery than multiple years doing it on my own. So I would highly recommend this to anyone who is available for it!

If you are a current student (undergrad or grad) -- you should apply to be a student partner at @DormRoomFund! Probably the most valuable community, credential and experience you can get while in school!