David Hirsch

General Partner at compound-ventures

Reviewed Updated Apr 27, 2026

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Location New York, NY
Check Size $400K-$1.5M
Last Verified Investment Achira (Seed) — Feb 24, 2025
Social @startupman LinkedIn
Stage Focus
seed series-a
Sector Focus
AI healthcare biotech crypto robotics deep-tech women-health digital-health

Background

David Hirsch is a General Partner at Compound, the New York–based thesis-driven, research-centric investment firm focused on early-stage AI/ML, robotics, biology and healthcare, and crypto 12. On Compound’s team page he is described as a General Partner “focusing on portfolio support and commercialization” who previously “built and scaled commercialization teams at Google” 1.

Hirsch joined Google in 2000 as the second employee in the company’s New York headquarters, when the company was doing under $3M in revenue, and stayed for roughly eight years before moving into venture capital in 2009 34. At Google he co-founded the Vertical Markets Group, helped launch monetization initiatives, and was involved in hiring, sales strategy, and business development 45.

In 2009 he co-founded Metamorphic Ventures with Marc Michel, a New York seed-stage fund whose original thesis was “transactional media” — the intersection of digital media and digital commerce 36. Metamorphic raised a $20M first fund and a $70M second fund, and produced exits including Tap Commerce (sold to Twitter for a reported $100M), Chango (sold to Rubicon Project for $122M), and Tapad (sold to Telenor for $360M) 67. In October 2016 Hirsch rebranded the firm as Compound and announced a $50M third fund, with Marc Michel having departed in January 2016 to start Runway Venture Partners 38. Hirsch has since run the firm alongside Managing Partner Michael Dempsey, who joined Compound in 2016 and was formally announced as Managing Partner in 2022 39.

Hirsch is also reported to serve on the boards of Girls Who Code and River Fund NY 105.

Stated Thesis

Compound publicly describes itself as “a Thesis-Driven, Research-Centric Investment Firm” focused on “Helping accelerate the futures that our founders believe in” across AI/ML, robotics, biology and healthcare, and crypto 2. Hirsch’s stated personal contribution to that thesis is operator-style commercialization help: Compound’s team page positions him as the partner “focusing on portfolio support and commercialization” 1.

In his own framing of Compound’s strategy at the 2016 rebrand, Hirsch wrote that the firm targets “the disruption or enablement of traditional industries” leveraging larger technological trends, and that the $50M fund was “deliberately sized” to “provide the best experience for founders and generate strong returns for investors” 8. He has also described an active-help model in which Compound’s small team is supplemented by an advisory board of operators and experts: “It’d be arrogant if we believed that we could be helpful with every problem” across so many startup types, so the firm relies on advisors filling specific gaps 8.

A separate, earlier piece of Hirsch’s stated thesis — articulated under the Metamorphic brand — focused on “the gap” between seed and Series A. He wrote that Metamorphic’s $70M second fund was sized to enable “seed extensions, or what we’re calling ‘superseed’ rounds (which are really pre A and post seed rounds)” so the firm could “take an active role in helping companies during a pivotal time” 11. As Compound has matured, that gap-focused framing has been largely subsumed into the broader research-centric thesis articulated alongside Dempsey.

Inferred Thesis

This analysis is based on 11 verified investments in which Compound’s participation under Hirsch’s tenure is confirmed by primary or contemporaneous press sources, plus Compound’s own published portfolio page 12. Hirsch leads neither a separate fund nor a public segment of Compound’s portfolio table, so the analysis below tries to differentiate his footprint from co-GP Michael Dempsey’s by sector mix and pre-Compound (Metamorphic) deals where Hirsch was the founding partner. Treat percentages as directional rather than statistically definitive.

Sector distribution (Compound era, 11 verified investments): Healthcare and biology is a dominant theme — Tia, Talkspace, Bionaut Labs, and Achira account for 4 of 11 (36%), and Compound’s published portfolio page lists 22 companies in its “Healthcare & Biology” bucket, the largest single category on the site 12. AI/ML and robotics accounts for 4 of 11 (36%) — Deepgram, Runway, Wayve, Achira (which sits at the AI/biology intersection). Crypto/blockchain accounts for 3 of 11 (27%) — Stacks, The Graph, Livepeer. The healthcare share is materially higher than appears in Dempsey’s verified subset, consistent with Compound’s team-page framing of Hirsch as the GP focused on “portfolio support and commercialization” — the work that matters most for regulated, go-to-market-heavy categories like women’s health (Tia) and digital mental health (Talkspace).

Earlier (Metamorphic era, where Hirsch was the founding partner): Metamorphic’s verified portfolio was concentrated in “transactional media” — adtech, commerce platforms, and crowdfunding — including Indiegogo, Tap Commerce, Chango, Tapad, Sailthru, Movable Ink, Transactis, and Appboy 67. This pre-Compound portfolio is qualitatively different from today’s Compound thesis but is meaningful context: Hirsch’s operator background drove early-stage bets on go-to-market-heavy software and consumer-internet businesses long before Compound’s pivot to deep tech.

Stage distribution: Of the 11 Compound-era verified rounds, the bulk are seed and Series A. Signal by NFX lists Hirsch’s check size range as $400K–$1.5M with a $1M sweet spot, consistent with seed-stage initial checks 4. VCSheet lists his geography as “USA, Europe” and notes that Compound “leads investments” within that range 10.

Founder profile patterns: Hirsch’s writing emphasizes founder-product fit and operator credibility. In his post announcing Mike Dempsey’s hire, he invoked Google’s “airport test” as a hiring screen — would you enjoy spending extended time with this person — and framed Compound’s value to founders in terms of “things we can be helpful with” rather than thesis-perfect category fit 138.

Co-investor patterns: In Compound-era healthcare deals Hirsch and Compound have repeatedly co-invested with Threshold Ventures (Tia Series A), Define Ventures (Tia), ACME (Tia), Homebrew (Tia), John Doerr (Tia), Khosla Ventures (Bionaut Labs), Dimension (Achira), Amplify Partners (Achira and Runway), and NVentures / NVIDIA (Achira) 141516. Signal by NFX additionally lists frequent network co-investors from his Metamorphic days including Christopher Priebe, Brad Holden, Errol Damelin, and Josh Elman 4.

Notable patterns vs. stated thesis: The stated Compound thesis weights AI, crypto, biology, and frontier tech roughly equally. Hirsch’s verified Compound-era footprint over-indexes on healthcare and biology (Tia, Talkspace, Bionaut, Achira) relative to the firm’s overall narrative, and his published writing leans more toward go-to-market and commercialization framing than toward the “deep tech / mismatched time horizons” framing that dominates Dempsey’s interviews. The simplest reading: at a firm where one GP is the research-and-thesis voice (Dempsey) and the other is the operator-and-commercialization voice (Hirsch), Hirsch’s natural deal sourcing tilts toward regulated, customer-acquisition-heavy categories where his Google-era go-to-market expertise is most directly useful.

Notable gaps: Compound’s published portfolio includes ~13 crypto companies and ~22 healthcare/biology companies 12; the verified Compound-era subset for this profile only confirms 4 of each. Most “frontier” / energy / materials portfolio companies on Compound’s site lacked the public funding announcements needed for individual citation in this profile. Hirsch’s individual deal leadership on Compound rounds (vs. firm-level participation) is rarely disclosed publicly, so attribution of “lead partner on the deal” is left blank in the table below where it cannot be confirmed.

Portfolio

Company Year Stage Source
Indiegogo ~2011 (Metamorphic) Seed/early 67
Tap Commerce ~2012 (Metamorphic; acq. Twitter 2014) Early 67
~unknown Chango (Metamorphic; acq. Rubicon Project) Early
Tapad (Metamorphic; acq. Telenor 2016) Early 67
~unknown Sailthru (Metamorphic) Early
~unknown Movable Ink (Metamorphic) Early
~unknown Appboy (Braze) (Metamorphic) Early
~unknown Transactis (Metamorphic) Early
Deepgram 2017 Seed 17
Stacks (Blockstack) 2017-2018 Token sale / early 18
Wayve 2018 Seed 19
The Graph 2019 Seed 20
Livepeer 2019 Series A 21
Bionaut Labs 2019 Early stage 22
Talkspace 2019 Series D 23
Tia 2020-05 Series A 14
Runway 2020-12 Series A 16
Achira 2025-02-24 Seed 1512

This table represents 18 of an unknown larger set — Compound’s website lists 60+ portfolio companies across automation, healthcare/biology, crypto, and other sectors 12, and Metamorphic’s portfolio over its first two funds spanned dozens more digital media/commerce companies 7. The entries above are the rounds with confirmed primary or contemporaneous press citations connecting Hirsch or his firm to the investment. Per-deal lead-partner attribution at Compound is rarely made public, so the table reflects firm-level participation rather than individual deal sourcing in most cases.

In Their Own Words

“Sometimes it’s better to take less money and prove out metrics in order to set the company up to win appropriately in the long run.” — David Hirsch on the “gap” between seed and Series A, Metamorphic blog 11

“Taking in too much capital too quickly can change the company’s culture for the worst, create unrealistic expectations, and distracting press coverage.” — David Hirsch, Metamorphic blog 11

“This is where New York City wins. Several major industries are here and the next wave of commercialization is upon us.” — David Hirsch, on Metamorphic’s $70M Fund II, TechCrunch, March 2014 7

“We want to be able to take advantage of the market between seed and Series A. [And] we wanted to have the ability to infuse more capital post seed and build better positions before people go out for the mega-rounds.” — David Hirsch, TechCrunch, March 2014 7

“It’d be arrogant if we believed that we could be helpful with every problem” — David Hirsch, on Compound’s advisory board model, October 2016 rebrand announcement 8

“Oren is the best and we have worked with him at compound helping our founders navigate the winding road of starting, building and scaling a company” — David Hirsch, LinkedIn, on Compound’s advisor Oren and the firm’s founder-support approach 24

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. Hirsch is regularly described in third-person press coverage as a hands-on commercialization advisor to Compound’s portfolio founders 10, and a 2016 Fast Company profile shadowed him through a working session with Nowsta co-founder Armand Patella as he advised on scaling challenges 25. However, first-person founder quotes specifically describing what it is like to work with Hirsch as an investor were not located in the time budget for this profile. As Compound rarely publishes deal-specific commentary from its GPs and most portfolio company press releases name Compound at the firm level rather than naming Hirsch, founder testimonials about him personally are not surfaced by standard search.

Connections

  • Co-founder of Compound (formerly Metamorphic Ventures) — co-founded the predecessor firm Metamorphic with Marc Michel in 2009; Michel departed in January 2016 to start Runway Venture Partners, after which Hirsch led the rebrand to Compound 38
  • Compound team partner — works with Managing Partner Michael Dempsey, Partners 0xSmac and Shelby Newsad, CFO Tara Eckert, and venture partners Drew Gray (AI/Robotics), John Palmer (Crypto), Ron Boger (Computational Biology), Celeste Holz-Schietinger (Biology), and Dan Zigmond (Data Science & AI) 12
  • Hired Mike Dempsey to Compound (2016/2017) — Hirsch publicly announced Dempsey’s hire and led the rebrand from Metamorphic to Compound that same year 138
  • Board / advisory roles — reported to serve on the boards of Girls Who Code and River Fund NY 105
  • Prior employer: Google (2000–2008) — second employee in Google’s New York office; co-founded the Vertical Markets Group; involved in hiring, sales strategy, and business development 45
  • Frequent Compound-era healthcare co-investors — Threshold Ventures, Define Ventures, ACME, Homebrew, John Doerr (Tia Series A) 14; Khosla Ventures (Bionaut Labs) 22; Dimension, Amplify Partners, NVentures (Achira) 15

Sources

  1. Compound, “David Hirsch” team page, accessed April 2026. https://www.compound.vc/team/davidh↩↩↩↩

  2. Compound, “About us” page, accessed April 2026. https://www.compound.vc/about↩↩↩

  3. TechCrunch, “Metamorphic Ventures has a new $50 million fund — and a new brand,” October 5, 2016. https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/05/metamorphic-ventures-has-a-new-50-million-fund-and-a-new-brand/↩↩↩↩↩

  4. Signal by NFX, “David Hirsch’s Investing Profile — Compound Managing Partner,” accessed April 2026. https://signal.nfx.com/investors/david-hirsch↩↩↩↩↩

  5. Crunchbase, “David Hirsch — Managing Partner @ Compound” person profile, accessed April 2026. https://www.crunchbase.com/person/david-hirsch↩↩↩↩

  6. AlleyWatch, “Compound, Formerly Known as Metamorphic Ventures Announces New Fund and Rebrand,” October 2016. https://www.alleywatch.com/2016/10/compound-formerly-known-metamorphic-ventures-announces-new-fund-rebrand/↩↩↩↩↩↩

  7. TechCrunch, “NYC Investor Metamorphic Raises $70 Million For Super Seed Fund,” March 11, 2014. https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/11/nyc-investor-metamorphic-raises-70-million-for-super-seed-fund/↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  8. Compound (Medium), “Compound, formerly known as Metamorphic Ventures Announces New Fund,” October 5, 2016. https://compoundvc.medium.com/compound-formerly-known-as-metamorphic-ventures-announces-new-fund-22c0bae613ce↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  9. Compound (Medium), “Behaving As If. Announcing Mike Dempsey as the Managing…,” March 11, 2022. https://compoundvc.medium.com/behaving-as-if-76c8416146f↩

  10. VCSheet, “David Hirsch (Compound) — VC Breakdown & Contact,” accessed April 2026. https://www.vcsheet.com/who/david-hirsch↩↩↩↩

  11. David Hirsch (Medium / Metamorphic Ventures), “The Gap,” accessed April 2026. https://medium.com/metamorphic-ventures/the-gap-ab5bc7216b2↩↩↩

  12. Compound, “Portfolio,” accessed April 2026. https://www.compound.vc/portfolio↩↩↩↩↩

  13. David Hirsch (Medium), “Introducing the Newest Member of the Compound Team,” January 9, 2017. https://medium.com/@startupman/introducing-the-newest-member-of-the-compound-team-a74b6ebbbe5e↩↩

  14. TechCrunch, “Tia gets over $24 million to build a network of holistic health clinics and virtual services for women,” May 28, 2020. https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/28/tia-health-gets-over-24-million-to-build-a-network-of-holistic-health-clinics-and-virtual-services-for-women/↩↩↩

  15. The Recursive, “Greek co-founded Achira secures €31.54M with NVIDIA’s backing,” February 2025. https://therecursive.com/greek-co-founded-achira-secures-e31-54m-with-nvidia-s-backing/↩↩↩

  16. Cristóbal Valenzuela (Runway / Medium), “Runway raises $8.5M Series A,” December 16, 2020. https://medium.com/runwayml/runway-raises-8-5m-series-a-9125f8007c79↩↩

  17. Crunchbase News, “Nvidia Invests In Deepgram For The Future Of Voice Recognition” (referencing Sept 2017 seed round led by Y Combinator and Compound), accessed April 2026. https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/nvidia-invests-deepgram-future-voice-recognition/↩

  18. Compound Crypto, “About,” accessed April 2026. https://crypto.compound.vc/about↩

  19. Michael Dempsey (Medium), “Scaling Autonomous Vehicles with Machine Learning — Our Investment in Wayve,” accessed April 2026. https://medium.com/@mhdempsey/scaling-autonomous-vehicles-with-machine-learning-our-investment-in-wayve-4d9bcf127932↩

  20. FinSMEs, “Graph Protocol Raises $2.4M in Seed Funding,” February 2019. https://www.finsmes.com/2019/02/graph-protocol-raises-2-4m-in-seed-funding.html↩

  21. TechCrunch, “Decentralized video infrastructure platform Livepeer raises $8M Series A,” June 17, 2019. https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/17/decentralized-video-infrastructure-platform-livepeer-raises-8m-series-a/↩

  22. Crunchbase News, “Khosla-backed Bionaut Labs Exits Stealth Mode With $20M,” March 2021 (financing received in 2019). https://news.crunchbase.com/health-wellness-biotech/khosla-backed-bionaut-labs-exits-stealth-mode-with-20m/↩↩

  23. TechCrunch, “Talkspace picks up $50 million Series D,” May 29, 2019. https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/29/talkspace-picks-up-50-million-series-d/↩

  24. David Hirsch (LinkedIn), public post praising Compound advisor Oren, October 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davidhirsch2_oren-is-the-best-and-we-have-worked-with-activity-7114964010126434305-O-p7↩

  25. Fast Company, “What I Learned During My Day With A Venture Capitalist,” 2015. https://www.fastcompany.com/3052733/what-i-learned-during-my-day-with-a-venture-capitalist↩