📣 Announcing the New HQ & our Early Adopters Club
ft. a DRF-backed company opening its NYC store, exciting community news, and the podcast eps we can't get enough of
Are you enjoying your summer? We sure are! The past few months have been a *transformational* time at Dorm Room Fund. All the details and more, below.
👋 introducing the new faces at DRF
Earlier this week, we announced our new 2022-2023 headquarters team. The HQ team is the lifeblood of our fund, working tirelessly behind the scenes to empower our student founders, investment partners, and the greater student entrepreneurship community.
Our talented team of nine can offer deep expertise on a variety of topics: community, marketing and communications, content, engineering, social, founder success, and design. We’ve got the bases covered for founder support! If you are a student founder interested in DRF funding and working with HQ, apply here. (We’re investing all year round, summer included!)
What can you expect from DRF content over the new academic year? For starters, a deep commitment to democratizing the startup and VC spaces for students. We’re continuing to post regularly on The Syllabus throughout the summer, although there will be some exciting changes to our newsletter(s) in the near future. We’ll keep you posted 👀
Now’s the perfect time to reach out if you have any content requests or feedback - just drop Andrew Xu (Editor in Chief) a line at andrew.xu@dormroomfund.com!
🗓️ updates from our community
🚨 give it a vote! — “starting early: the how-tos of investing in student founders”
Mel Li (DRF’s Head of Community and Partnerships) has been shortlisted to lead a roundtable session at TechCrunch Disrupt 2022. The excitement is real, guys.
Audience Choice voting is open now until July 15th, to determine the final line-up. If you want to see Mel speak in San Francisco this October about all things investing in university founders, please give her a vote!
Here’s the link to Mel’s roundtable session - click the thumbs up icon and leave it some love 💙
🛰 join DRF’s early adopter club!
You might be the friend with the best taste in up-and-coming products. Or you might be keen on meeting some of DRF’s coolest founders as an early community member. Maybe you want to connect with other folks who love the same sorts of brands as you do. If so — our new Early Adopter Club is the go!
We’ll be sharing monthly Early Adopter Club updates from the DRF portfolio: a round-up of all the first mover online communities you can join, plus assorted perks on offer.
To be the first to know when our community companies have something brewing, sign up to the email list-serv here. 🚀 Questions or suggestions? Shoot us a note via melissa@dormroomfund.com.
🥳 DRF-backed startup open for business!
Beambar, an innovative retail concept making teeth whitening as fun as a spa visit, opened its first location at 267 Bleecker St in NYC!
Ever since meeting co-founders Aditya Jain and Fabienne van Buchem back in 2020, Dorm Room Fund has been excited about BeamBar. We invested in Aditya and Fabienne because of their strong backgrounds in real estate investing and marketing, respectively, and the clear customer desire for brighter teeth. DRF looks forward to continue supporting BeamBar in its mission to make teeth whitening affordable and accessible to all!
If you’d also like to book a teeth whitening appointment for the coming week, use the code BEAMING20 for 20% off via https://www.thebeambar.com/book-online. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to us!
💰 celebrating recent DRF company raises
🛍️ Gander (fka Meet Klara) raised a $4.2 million seed round co-led by Harlem Capital and Crossbeam Venture Partners. Gander is an e-commerce platform that collects and embeds user-generated video content into retail sites so shoppers can see what a product looks like in real life.
🛠️ Dynaboard raised a $6.6 million seed round led by XYZ Venture Capital, with participation from Floodgate Fund, General Catalyst, The House Fund, Abstract, Mantis, and others. Dynaboard creates low-code web applications for product managers, designers, and developers.
✈️ Shield AI raised a $165 million Series E round at a $2.3 billion valuation. Snowpoint Ventures led the round, with participation by Riot Ventures, Disruptive, and Homebrew. Shield AI makes software and hardware for drones and other autonomous aircrafts used by military and government organizations.
🚚 Onfleet raised a $23 million Series B round led by Kayne Partners, with participation from Savant Growth. Onfleet specializes in last-mile delivery logistics and powers over 150 million deliveries for thousands of businesses around the world.
🏛️ Portabl raised a $2.5 million pre-seed round led by Brandon Bryant & Gabby Cazeau at Harlem Capital, with participation from 6th Man Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Dorm Room Fund, Rough Draft Ventures, and the MBA Fund. Portabl allows users to verify, organize, and maintain their own financial identity across Web2 and Web3 finance.
🎙️ the recent podcast episodes we’re replaying…
♻️ Miranda Wang, Co-founder and CEO of Novoloop: We talk Miranda’s formative years in college, maintaining strong co-founder dynamics, and the thought process behind raising institutional capital. Novoloop invents sustainable ways to convert end-of-life plastic into specialty materials.
💳 Jonathan Chang, XIR at Brex and Founder of GenZScouts: Jonathan works with startups and venture funds at Brex, and leads a quarterly fellowship for college students and startup sourcing platform via GenZScouts.
🦄 Connor McEwen, Engineering Lead at Uniswap Labs: Tune in for Connor’s thoughts on how to land a role at an attractive early-stage startup, plus hot takes on Web3 and crypto. Uniswap allows people to swap, earn, and build on the leading decentralized crypto trading protocol.
🥛 Josh Belinsky, Co-founder of Slate Milk: Slate Milk is a DTC milk brand available in over 3,500 stores nationwide. Learn how Josh raised over $7 million in venture dollars and made an appearance on Shark Tank!
📱 Ansh Nanda, Co-founder and CEO of Un1Feed: Ansh (our Head of Ops from 2021-22!) talks Duke basketball games, turning down a Google APM offer, and challenging Big Tech with his startup. Un1Feed is a platform that allows users to reclaim ownership of their social media feed by overriding the social feed algorithm.
👩💻 sign up to the talent network
Lastly, want to work with a Dorm Room Fund-backed company? The talent network’s where the info is! This is your reminder to create a profile and get access to our ever-growing jobs database. 🧠
… And that’s it from us! See you in two weeks and have a thriving summer 🌱
This issue was written by: Andrew Xu (andrew.xu@dormroomfund.com) and Mel Li (melissa@dormroomfund.com).
More DRF fun: Twitter + website + company application. Send job opportunities, feedback, requests, and hot takes to info@dormroomfund.com 🚀