Ed Zimmerman co-founded and chairs the Emerging Companies & Venture Capital Group at Lowenstein Sandler, where he’s been a growth company, startup and venture lawyer for 30 years. Chambers ranked Ed among the 22 best lawyers in Startups & Emerging Companies–USA–Nationwide (the only NYC-based lawyer listed (2018)). Best Lawyers in America named Ed 2017 NYC Venture Capital Lawyer of the Year.

Ed co-founded First Close Partners (see Wall Street Journal coverage) (2020), which invests into venture funds owned and run by underrepresented managers across the world, and The Historic Fund (a nonprofit supporting Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) by donating fully-funded LP interests in a portfolio of VC funds into HBCU endowments). Outside of First Close Partners, Ed has personally invested in 100+ VC funds and 170+ startups, predominantly in the US, Europe, and Africa.



Ed serves as: an Adjunct Professor of VC at Columbia (since 2005), on the Wall Street Journal’s Panel of Experts (80 columns published), founder/Chair of VentureCrush (since March 2000), Interim Chair of the Board of Center for Policing Equity (which uses data and science to make law enforcement less deadly, less racist and less omnipresent), and a Board member at Fisk University (an HBCU in Nashville, TN), Black Women Talk Tech, The Orchid Foundation, and, previously, Harvey Mudd College.

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