What do YouTube, Eventbrite, Okcupid and MemSQL have in common? Other than being massive technology successes, they were all built by Stanford alums. They are also just a few of the companies whose founders have now joined the Dorm Room Fund network as RAs to mentor a new generation of companies being founded in university dorms.
Today, I’m glad to announce that the Dorm Room Fund is bringing on board over 60 RAs who have founded, grown or invested in path breaking companies, to mentor the DRF portfolio. Our full list features alums from Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, UPenn, Cornell, UC Berkeley, and NYU among others, and spans every imaginable sector and size of company.
Each RA is an amazing innovator, a pioneering entrepreneur, and most importantly, a proud alum who has volunteered to coach, mentor and work directly with DRF companies across the country. The RAs will regularly participate in DRF community events at our speaker sessions and brown bag lunches, and will have the ability to engage more deeply with each campus.
As always, Stanford’s showing bas been terrific, with 13 RA alums across the undergraduate, business and graduate schools. Beyond the Farm, the RA network brings together experts from a diverse range of backgrounds, from GoogleX Director Mike Cassidy, to Quora founder Charlie Cheever. The Dorm Room Fund was formed to give students the ability to launch world changing ventures, and our list of RAs exemplifies that ability, regardless of industry, region or any other limiting factor.
A key reason behind launching the RA network is the DRF’s mission to be a venture fund by students, for students; bringing together mentors who were once in the same shoes as DRF students was a natural next step. The DRF is entirely run and managed by student investment teams who oversee the complete operations of the fund, from sourcing to investment, not to mention the DRF’s own website, built by Sam Slover and Steven Krouse from our New York and Philly funds. We are also supported by First Round Capital’s Phin Barnes and CeCe Cheng, an amazing team who have grown the DRF from its first iteration at Wharton to a national venture capital firm across both coasts.
We’re thrilled to welcome the RAs into our community, and are excited for all the future possibilities that they bring to DRF founders.