📣 Epic vs. Apple: Allow other forms of in-app purchases

📎 Community events and more tips for soon-to-be DRF friends

Sep 16, 2021

We’re LIVE… 🔔💥 #CountdownToDRF reveal… join the DRFamily as an Investment Partner(s) or Head of Engineering 🤝 All the links you need (application, website, blog, socials, events) here: linktr.ee/dormroomfund 🚀

💼 investment partner apps

We’re announcing a new deadline of 11:59 p.m. CT on Sept. 29 for all the folks from Midwest region schools! Midwest folks have traditionally formed an important part of our New York team, but in recognition of the later start to the fall semester at many Midwest schools, you will have until Sept. 29 to apply if you are from Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, or Illinois.

virtual meet the i-teams

Join investment team partners from our regional teams to learn about their experiences with Dorm Room Fund and top application tips. Come prepared with questions. Our partners would love to meet you! #RegionalRepresent

New York: Thursday Sept. 16, 8-8:45 p.m. ET — Join us if your school is in New York, Montana, North & South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Register here. We got our dates mixed up and accidentally scheduled on Yom Kippur, our apologies! If you can’t make it, keep your eyes out for another New York event soon.

Midwest: Thursday Sept. 23, 7:30-8:15 p.m. CT — Join us if your school is in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Register here

San Francisco: Thursday Sept. 23, 7:30-8:15 p.m. PT — Join us if your school is in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, and Hawaii. Register here.

👋 meet DRF alums in VC - this friday!

Join us this Friday Sept. 17 at 7:30 p.m. ET for a Career Insights Panel with DRF Alums in VC! Our friends and superstars Isabelle Phelps (partner at Lerer Hippeau), Shawn Xu (senior associate at Floodgate), and Rima Reddy (principal at Commerce Ventures) will be speaking about how to break into VC from a tech, retail and business strategy background - among other great industry insights! Register here.

🚀 updates from our community

DRF investing team alum, Shubham Goel, raised an $80M series C led by Menlo Ventures with Affinity.co. Sounds like smart stuff: The six-year-old, SF company helps users understand who in their organization has the best chance of getting a meeting or closing a deal. Now they’ve raised $120 million total.
Another DRF investing alum, Desmond Lim, raises $48M with Workstream.
DRF former managing partner, Jéssica Leão, joins Maverick Capital as a venture investor.

🔥 a red hot opportunity for founders

Floodgate has just launched their Reactor program, designed to ignite the founders of the future! Floodgate will invest $50K each into 10 student founder teams, and over the course of 8 months you’ll learn how to iterate your startup idea to find product market fit – among other must-know topics! Applications due Oct 1.

Shoutout to Shawn Xu, one of our alumni, for sharing – feel free to email him with questions at shawn@floodgate.com. See his Twitter thread here.

📎 your latest tech news

Epic v. Apple A judge issued a decision that Apple can’t stop developers from using other forms of payments in Apple’s in-app purchases. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney doesn’t think it’s enough:

Tim Sweeney @TimSweeneyEpic

Today’s ruling isn't a win for developers or for consumers. Epic is fighting for fair competition among in-app payment methods and app stores for a billion consumers.

Mark Gurman @markgurman

Apple’s response to Judge’s ruling in Epic Case: https://t.co/LeF4osdTQC

Why some Silicon Valley tech people turned on California’s governor: Read this cool transcript from a political economist and Stanford business school professor about California’s recall election.
Food delivery companies sue NYC. When you’re big enough, I guess you can sue a whole city. Grubhub, DoorDash, and Uber Eats sued NYC over a law capping the number of commissions it can charge restaurants.
$510M Series E: Whoever gets bored and loves to raise hundreds of millions in a few months, you might find friends at Varo Bank. They’ve raised another round, on top of the $241M in June 2020 (I’m hearing the middle of the pandemic type of efficiency).

Children in China, play fewer games: Tencent and NetEase, China’s two biggest online gaming companies, saw their shares drop after Chinese officials told them to restrict game time for children.

👉 jobs from our community companies

Freewill, building the best tools to help nonprofits fundraise. Freewill is already moving over $2B every year into charity, and growing fast. Hiring over 50 roles (!) in the next few months via freewill.com/careers.
Umamicart, an online grocer delivering Asian groceries: business development manager (full time, NY) + lead PM (full time, NY)
C16 Biosciences, building an environmentally-friendly alternative to “conflict palm oil”: head of marketing (full time, NY) + marketing manager (full time, NY)

💡 jobs referred by our DRF family

Emile, disrupting high school learning: software engineer (full time, LA)
Comity Card, advances tax credits through basic income: full stack developer (NY, remote) + mobile engineer (NY, remote)
Stripe, mobile payments: senior, lead PM (Remote, NYC, SEA, SF)
2048 Ventures, lead investor in early stage tech companies: biotechnology and digital health principal
Uniswap Labs: strategy associate (NY, full time)
Noom, mobile health coaching: healthcare product (internship)

📖 more tips and tricks to our investment partner app

Because we’d rather you not whip out $6 for a drink to have a coffee chat, we’re handing out free stuff:

Tell us about your network. This is the time to whip out those networking skills and tell us why you’re the best representative for your school. And no, we don’t expect you to be president of three entrepreneurship clubs and founder of a $10M startup (but if this is you, send us a DM😉). You can be the sorority president + alto singer in choir + lover of sustainability, and equally stand a chance. We have coverage in many entrepreneurship + VC spaces, but good ideas come from anywhere. So tell us why your community, whatever it may be, will be a source of cool ideas for the DRF family.
No venture experience is cool for us, but … You’ll hear us tell you that we don’t expect any venture capital experience (it’s true!). But we’d be impressed by your hot takes and interest in learning new things nonetheless. Read the First Round Review (shoutout to our friends at First Round Capital) or try TechCrunch for the latest news about VC and startups.
Spill the tea on your campus. We want the hot gossip on the coolest new companies spinning inside those dorms. And we want to get there first. That’s where you come in! Come prepared with swanky ideas by founders who need $$ and nerdy friends in us - we’d love to support.

😂 meme 😂

By the DRF team

More fun: Twitter + website + company app. Send jokes, criticisms, and hot takes to info@dormroomfund.com + annewen@dormroomfund.com (content feedback) + melissa@dormroomfund.com (community updates). 🚀

The Syllabus