Contrary is a venture fund that identifies the world’s top early-career engineers, designers, and product minds, connects them with a close-knit, career-long support community, and invests in companies they start or join.

I work with USC Founders and invest up to $500K in university-started seed-stage companies. If you’re building something great, send me a deck at bryan at contrarycap.com

[Contrary Website ↗](https://contrarycap.com)

[Contrary 2020 Venture Partners ↗](https://medium.com/@contrarycapital/contrarys-class-of-2020-6781ad4d97ee)

[TechCrunch ](https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/01/contrary-capital-wants-to-invest-the-next-big-tech-mafia/)[Article ↗](https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/16/part-fund-part-accelerator-contrary-capital-invests-in-student-entrepreneurs/)

### FAQ

I get a lot of questions about Contrary. Usually, they fall into two buckets:

1. Anyone curious on what Venture Capital is like on the University levels
2. Prospective applicants for the Venture Partner role, their fellowship, accelerator or any other Contrary programs.

If you’ve gone through the website, here’s what I usually repeat in a lot of the questions I get:

My first semester, I was a wide-eyed 18 year old with no exposure to tech, joining entrepreneurship-related communities to learn as much as I could. I started my own thing (story for another time!) and I met a ton of USC students working on cool projects. We have great resources at USC if you know where to find them. However, it definitely felt like most conversations lead to the problem of finding funding to hire people, be able to go all in on the project, etc. After working with Wonder Ventures, a LA-based VC firm, on a [fellowship initiative](https://tech.la), I realized the huge difference between the amount of capital in SF-Bay Area vs anywhere else.

That’s why I joined as a Venture Partner at Contrary. Essentially, I wanted to help more talented student founders that were under-recognized succeed! And that’s really the mission behind Contrary.

Contrary as a community is my favorite part — I’ve made lifelong friends from all over the country, worked with them on projects, even lived with some of them. The Contrary ‘mafia’ has a strong alumni presence, with practically an expert on the line for the most niche of topics. Many of the VP’s are also authors, athletes, designers, researchers, MBAs, musicians — ranging from 18 to married — but all very ambitious and connected people.

That being said, a quick run-down:

• Want to help Founders?
  • Joining as a Venture Partner is a good option ([applications](https://contrarycap.com) open every fall). I lead the USC pod. If you go to another school, the Venture Partners there would be a better fit to talk to.
• Founder?
  • Let’s talk, even if you’re pre-fundraising, pre-pitch deck or pre-idea. I can connect you to someone, give resources, or just be someone to rant to.
• Want to work at Startups?
  • You’re probably a good fit for [Contrary Fellows](https://contrarycap.com/fellowship). Let’s talk, might be able to refer you.
• Interested in Venture Capital as a Career?
  • Being a VP (applications open every fall) might be a good move, but a better move is to do the job regardless. Talk to founders, help them out, get really into the startup scene at your school (if you don’t go to USC: this manifests in a different way at every school’s startup ecosystem).
• Saw something about Build or Accelerator or another Contrary program?
  • I most likely have little information beyond what the website offers.