Dorm Room Fund

Eat your heart out Mav and Goose: Dorm Room Fund company Shield AI announced their $240M Series F at $5B post this week to support making fighter jets fly themselves. We backed the team as one of their first investors, before their seed round in 2016, when Brandon Tseng was still a recent Navy SEAL and student at Harvard Business School. One of my favorite highlights from the investment memo was this quote from the founders, "The team’s biggest concern is fundraising, 'the VCs we’ve met with have shied away from defense because of misconceptions' around how long it takes to win contracts in that end market". Oh how far we've come! Shout out to Riley Soward and Vesal Yazdi who first introduced Brandon, Ryan Tseng ????, and then CTO Andrew Reiter. Just goes to show that our thesis that fellow classmates-- in this case, Vesal-- know better than just about anyone who the best builders are in their peer set. Congratulations, Bandon, Ryan and Team ShieldAI! What a ridiculous journey.

We invested in Tarun Amasa back in 2022 when he was building in Edtech— not just because of the idea, but because of him. Great founders evolve, and the we stick with them through pivots. Today, he’s building Endex, using AI to rethink financial analysis and investment workflows. The journey from Edtech to fintech wasn’t linear, but conviction in the right people always pays off. Proud to have been part of the journey from the start. Read more about their partnership with OpenAI:?openai.com/index/endex

Around the world, our partners at DRF— alumni and present— are busy building the future. But for one weekend each year, we bring them together at the Winter Clove Inn. Besides the DJ sets and bowling rivalries, All DRF is a testament to what makes this community special— founders who’ve been through the chaos of building a company return to share hard-won lessons with the next builders and investors. Not because they have to, but because they know it's hard— and that it’s easier with the right people beside you. This year, we heard from alumni shaping industries with companies like Dandy and Hightouch, investors who've led early bets on now-household names, and operators who’ve scaled startups from zero to millions of users. More than anything, this retreat is about people. One of our favorite traditions is writing positive post-it notes for each other, slipped into goodie bags. A reminder that DRF isn’t just a fund; it’s a community that lasts well beyond the first check.

Founders! Get ready to go all in.?Dorm Room Fund?alongside?CRV?and?Bain Capital Ventures?are hosting Founders Poker Night at?Stanford— where high stakes meet high-impact connections. ?? $1,000 Grand Prize (Runner-up: $500, 3rd & 4th: $250). ???Meet and network with fellow founders + top VC partners. ??? No buy-in, but application only—tell us what you're building!Open to MBA, undergrad, and grad student founders. Whether you’re here for the game or the game-changing convos, this is your chance to make some real plays. No poker experience needed to enter! ??? Monday, April 7th from 6-9pm PT ***Note: There's a limit of 50 spots!*** Applications will be reviewed on a?rolling basis?with priority given to current founders/builders. Apply by?Friday Mar 14. See you at the table.??? Apply here:?https://lu.ma/jwg7q79n

Kicking off 2025 with Dorm Room Fund’s ALL DRF—a powerhouse weekend in Upstate NY bringing together the brightest student investors, founders, the unstoppable alumni network & of course the visionary leaders behind DRF. From fireside chats to lightning talks, “Between Two Pins” to late-night bowling, this crew is shaping the future of venture—one investment at a time. Honored to produce an event that fuels the next generation of builders and investors. The future of VC? It starts here.???

CONGRATS to Kashish Gupta and the Hightouch team on raising your $80M Series C and joining the unicorn club at a $1.2B valuation!!! Y'all have come a long way since we wrote that first check into the company at Dorm Room Fund, back when you were a scrappy student entrepreneur at Penn (h/t to the legends Adele Li and Toni Oloko for sourcing). Super personalized marketing through agentic AI decisioning is here, made possible by Hightouch. CMOs at companies like Spotify, Ramp, Petsmart, and a host of others are taking note - if you're a marketing leader and you want a demo, hit me up and I'll put you in touch directly. Congrats again, big things coming in 2025!

If you or anyone you know is looking for a new role at the intersection of aviation and building great software, please apply to our two open roles - we are hiring ASAP in NYC. https://lnkd.in/esZbved9 Perks include daily office views like this...

Another big milestone for the DRF family— Hightouch just raised $80M at a $1.2B valuation! We first backed Kashish Gupta in 2019 when he was building a travel startup. That early DRF check literally laid the foundation— down to buying a computer for ML work. Now, Hightouch is reshaping AI-driven customer data, powering companies like Spotify, PetSmart, and Grammarly. And Kashish remains a key part of the DRF community— just last week, he shared advice and insights from his journey at our annual ALL DRF. Congrats to Kashish Gupta, Tejas Manohar, Josh Curl, and the Hightouch team— we know this is just the beginning! Read more: https://lnkd.in/dZm_HzCm

Genia and the incredible Zhihao Zhao, Robin Li, Shuyang Dai, and Houtao Wang just raised a $3M seed to launch Genia Structural CoPilot, an AI-powered tool that generates physics-validated structural plans instantly. A game-changer for construction efficiency. Read more about their raise here:

We’re excited to share the incredible journey of one of our very own— Desmond Lim, a former member of the Boston team who has raised more than $120M for his latest venture, Workstream. “I was so hungry when I was at Harvard, I felt like I was drinking from a firehose.” That hunger is something we see time and time again in the founders and investors who come through Dorm Room Fund. They don’t just chase opportunities— they create them. It’s inspiring to watch our alumni go on to build and back some of the most impactful companies out there, and Workstream is a perfect example of that. Read more about his journey here: https://lnkd.in/eupUF8DF