Contrary

From Day 1, Contrary's mission has been to identify and invest in the world's most exceptional people. It’s enabled us to be early backers of companies like Anduril, Ramp, Zepto, and many others.

Our student Venture Partners are a key part of this process. They’re an exceptional team of builders who work closely with us to discover the next generation of founders at universities across the US and Canada.

Each year, we run a rigorous recruitment and selection process to identify a small number of VPs to join our community. This year was one of our most selective and competitive years yet: we received over 1500 applications, of which we ultimately accepted 28.

They are a diverse group of exceptional builders, founders, researchers, investors, writers, engineers, and everything in between, and we are thrilled today to welcome them to the Contrary family.

This year’s class includes:
• A Regeneron Science Talent Search winner, a USA Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad camper, and researchers from world-renowned academic institutions and premier research labs
• Product builders and engineers from OpenAI, Palantir, NVIDIA, Groq, Databricks, Snap, and Figma, and have built apps themselves that have served 1M+ users
• Musicians (cellists, guitarists, a pianist, and producers) from around the world
• Builders of GPU compilers, neural implants, high-power rockets, and hypersonic jet engines

As we’ve gotten to know them over the past few weeks, we couldn’t be more excited to start working together. We’re thrilled to welcome the following new Venture Partners to the Contrary family!

Contrary Venture Partner applications are now open!

If you're a builder on campus, interested in investing in exceptional startups, and want to be part of one of the most selective communities in tech, apply now.

Contrary invests and works directly alongside exceptional founders to build enduring companies, from seed to scale. With this approach, we’ve been fortunate to back iconic companies like Ramp, Anduril, Zepto, and many others.

Our Venture Partners are great builders and future founders who become the go-to resource for others on campus. As a VP, you’ll learn first-hand what it takes to build and invest in exceptional companies, from taking part in investment decisions to sitting in on fireside chats with seasoned founders and investors.

Best of all, you’ll be joining and learning from the best community in tech. Most VPs go on to become venture-backed founders, early engineers/operators, or investors, and enjoy the support of Contrary’s network for life.

Read more here: contrary.com/blog/venture-p…

Apply here by Sept 13th: contrarycap.typeform.com/ContraryVP2026

Local government IT is a $160B market on decades-old software. @FSHTechnologies is rebuilding it from procurement up.

Proud to have led FSH's Seed and backed their Series A w/ @lachygroom & @AcrewCapital. Congrats to Lilly Chen and the team, and to @jchen623 on joining as COO.

contrary.com/blog/investing…

We’re thrilled to be hosting our next SF Tech Talk of the year with engineering leads from @LangChain, @cognition, @elevenlabs, and @andocorporation.

Designed by engineers, for engineers — each company will deliver live demos of their latest features for leading builders in the Bay Area.

From Day 1, Contrary's mission has been to identify and invest in the world's most exceptional people. It’s enabled us to be early backers of companies like Zepto, Ramp, Hallow, Anduril, and many others.

Our student Venture Partners are a key part of this process. They’re an exceptional team of builders who work closely with us to discover the next generation of founders at universities across the US and Canada.

Each year, we run a rigorous recruitment and selection process to identify a small number of VPs to join our community. This year was one of our most selective and competitive years yet: we received nearly 1500 applications, of which we ultimately accepted 20.

They are a diverse group of exceptional builders, founders, researchers, investors, writers, engineers, and everything in between, and we are thrilled today to welcome them to the Contrary family.

This year’s class includes:
• Current and former founders who have raised over $15M+ in venture capital
• Thiel fellows, competitive programmers, Wimbledon players, published researchers, and former investors
• Product builders with apps that have served 1M+ users
• Musicians (tabla and jori players, jazz singers, and violinists) who have performed at venues around the world
• Builders of spectrofluorometers, mushroom-picking robots, solar plants, and photonic chips

As we’ve gotten to know them over the past few weeks, we couldn’t be more excited to start working together. We’re thrilled to welcome the following new Venture Partners to the Contrary family!