Hayley Barna

Background

Hayley Bay Barna is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist who co-founded Birchbox and is currently a Partner at First Round Capital based in New York ¹².

Barna graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School ¹³. She began her career as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company in New York, then held strategic roles at auction house Christie’s in Hong Kong and in product management at Amazon in Seattle ²³.

In 2010, while at Harvard Business School, Barna co-founded Birchbox with Katia Beauchamp ¹. Birchbox was a subscription ecommerce company widely credited for pioneering the subscription box industry ². Barna served as Co-CEO, growing what started as a school project into a 200-person business with approximately $180 million in revenue and over a million monthly subscribers ²⁴. First Round Capital was an original seed investor in Birchbox, establishing the existing relationship between Barna and the firm ⁴. Over her tenure, Barna raised over $70 million in venture capital for Birchbox ⁴.

In 2015, Barna stepped away from her day-to-day role at Birchbox, remaining as a board member ¹. She spent several months advising startups and making angel investments ⁴. In February 2016, she joined First Round Capital as a venture partner to lead the New York office ⁴. In November 2017, she was promoted to general partner, becoming the first female GP in First Round’s history ⁵. Companies backed by Barna at First Round have raised over $1.4 billion in follow-on capital ².

Barna is a founding member of All Raise, an organization committed to accelerating the success of female founders and funders ². She serves as Treasurer of the Board of Trustees at the Society for Science ³. She has been recognized on Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, and Ad Age’s Women to Watch ².

Stated Thesis

Barna publicly describes her investment focus as working with “founders tackling problems with real-world impact across healthcare, climate, supply chain and commerce that have been either overlooked or assumed to be unsolvable” ².

She frames her approach through the lens of founder-operator empathy, stating that her founder experience makes her “more empathetic — especially in the fundraising process but also during the different inflection points in the lifecycle of the business” ⁶. She has said: “What I learned in those six months off [after Birchbox] was that my energy was coming from advising and investing conversations, so I never really picked up the pen to start writing the next business plan” ⁶.

On evaluation criteria, Barna has stated she focuses on: the team — “who they are, what they’ve done before, what they’re motivated by” — spending significant time understanding the person; the market dynamics and what problem needs to be solved; and whether the solution represents an “orders-of-magnitude better” improvement rather than an incremental one ².

She has described seed-stage investing as “the best way to use my 0 to 1 founder experience to help other companies” ⁷. On the investor’s role, she has stated: “At the seed stage, an investor should be the first person you call — the coach in your corner and the kick in the ass when you need it most” ².

Inferred Thesis

Based on 12 verified investments attributed to Barna in the portfolio table below, the following patterns emerge. Note: this represents her investments at First Round Capital (joined 2016); the actual total may be higher.

Sector distribution (based on 12 verified investments): - Healthcare/healthtech: 3 investments (Alma, Thirty Madison, SiteRx) = 3/12 = 25% - Consumer/DTC: 3 investments (Studs, Clare, Collective Retreats) = 3/12 = 25% - Tech-enabled hardware/commerce: 2 investments (Mirror, Caper) = 2/12 = 17% - Beauty/personal care: 1 investment (Matter of Fact) = 1/12 = 8% - Social/consumer tech: 1 investment (Squad) = 1/12 = 8% - Supply chain/B2B: 1 investment (Anvyl) = 1/12 = 8% - Climate/energy: 1 investment (Arbor) = 1/12 = 8%

Note: CrowdJustice is attributed to Barna via multiple secondary sources ¹¹² but could not be confirmed with a primary source naming her or First Round specifically; it is excluded from this count. If included, the total rises to 13 investments with legal tech/marketplace at 8%.

Key patterns:

Stage: Exclusively seed-stage investments, consistent with First Round Capital’s mandate. All verified deals are seed or early-stage.

Geography: Heavy concentration in New York City. Of the 12 verified investments, the vast majority are NYC-based companies (Alma, Studs, Clare, Mirror, Caper, Anvyl, Squad, Collective Retreats). This aligns with her role leading First Round’s New York office.

Founder profiles: Notable pattern of backing female founders and first-time founders: Anna Harman and Lisa Bubbers (Studs), Nicole Gibbons (Clare), Brynn Putnam (Mirror), Esther Crawford (Squad). This is consistent with her public commitment to female founders through All Raise.

Exit record: Strong exit history — 3 of 12 companies were acquired: Mirror (acquired by Lululemon for $500M in 2020) ⁸, Caper (acquired by Instacart for $350M in 2021) ⁹, Squad (acquired by Twitter in 2020) ¹⁰. Alma is being acquired by Spring Health (expected Q2 2026) ¹¹. This represents a 25% exit rate (33% including pending Alma acquisition) with notable outcomes.

Sector vs. stated thesis: Her stated focus on “healthcare, climate, supply chain and commerce” partially matches the portfolio. Healthcare (25%) and consumer/commerce (25%) are well-represented. However, climate is a newer addition with only Arbor (2023), and supply chain has only one investment (Anvyl). The portfolio reveals a strong consumer/DTC orientation (Studs, Clare, Mirror, Collective Retreats) that is underemphasized in her stated thesis.

Co-investor patterns: Lerer Hippeau appears multiple times as a co-investor (Studs, Mirror). BoxGroup also appears across multiple deals (Mirror, Alma).

Check size: Signal NFX reports a minimum of $100K, target of $1.5M, and maximum of $5M ¹².

Notable gap: Despite her Birchbox background in beauty/personal care, only one investment (Matter of Fact) is in the beauty category, suggesting a deliberate effort to diversify beyond her operating roots.

Portfolio

Note on Thirty Madison / Keeps: Keeps is a subsidiary brand of Thirty Madison. Signal NFX ¹² records a $2.8M venture round in Keeps (May 2017) with Barna as investor. Crunchbase records a Thirty Madison seed round (November 2017) with First Round Capital as investor ¹⁴. These are counted as a single portfolio entry to avoid double-counting.

Note on CrowdJustice: Multiple secondary sources attribute this investment to Barna ¹¹², but the primary TechCrunch article about CrowdJustice’s $2M raise ¹⁵ does not name Barna or First Round Capital.

Note on Arbor: The seed announcement ²⁰ names First Round Capital as lead investor but does not name Barna individually.

This table represents 12-13 verified investments attributed to Barna (depending on CrowdJustice attribution). Her actual portfolio at First Round is likely larger; the firm’s website states she has “led investments across many industries and business models” since 2016 ². Additional investments such as 831 Stories (2024, publishing) have been reported but lack sufficient sourcing for inclusion ²¹.

In Their Own Words

On the transition from founder to investor:

“What I learned in those six months off was that my energy was coming from advising and investing conversations, so I never really picked up the pen to start writing the next business plan.” — Hayley Barna, Fortune, April 2018 ⁶

On joining First Round:

“I can’t think of a better place to do this than First Round, which led the seed round in my company Birchbox, and has always put founders first through good times and bad.” — Hayley Barna, Fortune, February 2016 ⁴

On the New York market:

“It’s a transitional time for the market, but I’m not concerned about finding good startups, particularly in New York.” — Hayley Barna, Fortune, February 2016 ⁴

On founder mistakes — loss of momentum:

“We stopped — we packaged it up and made a beautiful slide deck and went to go pitch it. This meant that we had essentially lost momentum. It’s a total ‘no-no.’” — Hayley Barna, Fortune, April 2018 ⁶

On founder mistakes — targeting wrong investors:

“We didn’t understand that not all investors invest in everything. We talked to a lot of people who had never invested in e-commerce.” — Hayley Barna, Fortune, April 2018 ⁶

On saying no:

“When I say no, I do try to give specific feedback in terms of what I liked, but also why we’re passing. I will try my best to avoid slow no’s because those are the worst.” — Hayley Barna, Fortune, April 2018 ⁶

On scale expectations:

“We’re interested in investing in companies that can be $1 billion or more one day.” — Hayley Barna, Fortune, April 2018 ⁶

On vulnerability as a founder:

“It’s important to be strong and positive as a founder, it’s also important to be vulnerable and ask for help.” — Hayley Barna, Y Combinator Q&A ²²

On being a bridge for founders:

“I hope I can serve as a relatable bridge to the investment community, especially for first-time founders.” — Hayley Barna, Y Combinator Q&A ²²

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found after dedicated searching. While Barna’s portfolio includes several high-profile exits (Mirror, Caper, Squad, Alma), specific public quotes from her portfolio founders about their experience with her as an investor were not found in available sources. The First Round Capital website features general testimonials but none specifically attributed to Barna’s portfolio founders by name.

The Studs founders (Anna Harman and Lisa Bubbers) characterized Barna’s investment thesis for their company as being “excited about how Studs tackles a large market ready for a new service paradigm and brand voice,” noting Barna found the company “extremely tapped into the mind of today’s consumer” ⁷. However, this is a characterization of the investor’s view rather than a testimonial about the investor experience.

Sources