Announcing the new CEO and COO of Dorm Room Fund!
Dorm Room Fund was started more than six years ago with the belief that students could invest and support their peers building companies. Since its inception, the fund has invested in companies that have gone onto raise hundreds of millions in follow on capital and are valued at more than $1.5B, acquired by some of the best tech companies, and have a meaningful impact in the greater entrepreneurial ecosystem. With our old CEO Rei Wang leaving to #BeAFounder, we set out to find our next fearless leader. We created a candidate rubric to help us narrow in on the perfect person for the job: this person needed hustle, to be a clear communicator, an excellent coach and mentor, incredibly organized, and someone who believed in our vision that students could change the landscape of entrepreneurship and lead us in our next chapter of Dorm Room Fund.
Molly Fowler is the perfect person to fill this roll. Not only does Molly have ample experience in running decentralized teams across oceans and rivers at Intersection Co, she’s also run political campaigns for councilmembers, a Congresswoman, and LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, where she ran a field team of 1000+ volunteers in his mayoral race. Thus far, working with Molly has been fantastic. She knows what it takes to get to the end objective efficiently, while giving us (the students) the agency and support to achieve whatever we set our minds to. Molly is setting the precedent for excellence, and we are so thankful to be able to work with her moving forward. Molly will continue to help shape the vision of DRF and act as the ultimate resource for the team.
We’ve also been looking to bring on someone to lead DRF operations. Making an investment is hard, but providing adequate support to help a portfolio company grow is even harder. Our new COO would need to know not only how to navigate the startup landscape, enabling portfolio companies through the DRF and First Round network, but also how to guide us on how they can scale effectively (hiring, internal operations, etc.).
As complementary firepower to our new CEO (the ginger pun is not lost on us), Chauncey Hamilton is joining as our inaugural COO. Chauncey is an incredible fit for the role, having extensive operational experience at the Chief of Staff to Rob Hayes (First Round partner). She knows exactly what First Round is able to offer in addition to DRF, including which resources and people can act as a force multipliers to DRF community companies. Chauncey also understands the full investment process — sourcing, selecting, and supporting — which will be pivotal in how she can help current DRF partners and founders build the future of student entrepreneurship.
We can’t wait to grow faster and enable more student entrepreneurs with the addition of Molly and Chauncey to our team. If you are a student founder looking to get your idea off the ground, drop us a line and apply here.
