James Hennessy

Jen Yang-Wong

Jessica Retrum

Kyle Harrison

Eric Tarczynski

Contrary HQ

Jason Chen

Will Robbins

For the past five years, Contrary has been guided by the belief that people matter most.

Throughout that time, our most special moments have been in-person. Whether traveling to universities in the early days, bringing our entire community together for Retreat, or spontaneous meetups and hangouts which happen weekly from coast to coast — Contrary is at its best when we’re together.

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re doubling down on our commitment to in-person collaboration. We’re officially launching Contrary NYC, a creative workspace in the heart of the Flatiron District, which serves as a beacon and hub for the city’s best technologists, thinkers, and builders.

The next Xerox PARC won’t be built over Zoom. It will be forged by brilliant minds coming together in one space, discussing ideas, collaborating with one another, and — most importantly — building.

Why New York? The city is undergoing a rebirth as a stomping ground for some of the brightest minds across many tech disciplines, and we’ve watched the Contrary community gravitate there at a remarkable pace – in fact, 40% of our entire community is now NYC-based. It’s our mission to be at the nucleus of the next generation of exceptional talent, and NYC was the natural choice.

We’ve already seen remarkable things come out of Contrary NYC following its soft launch earlier this year. Founders have come together, companies have been acquired, and startups have raised tens of millions of dollars from world-class investors and angels. It has already generated over $200M+ in cumulative value, and we can’t wait to achieve orders of magnitude more in the coming year.

If you’re interested in becoming a member of Contrary NYC, apply here or get referred by an existing member.

Announcing Contrary NYC. A creative workspace in Flatiron for the top technologists and builders in NYC.

Announcing Contrary NYC

Today, we’re excited to share that Judith Lao has joined the engineering team.

The Contrary community is a collection of the world’s most ambitious, curious and kind people. We look for the same when bringing anyone on to our HQ team — and Judith is no exception. From our very first conversation with her, each member of the team that met Judith walked away energized and excited to have her join our engineering team. She’s a perfect cultural fit with the same curiosity, ambition and kindness that we embody and strive for.

Prior to joining us, Judith was an engineer at Bloomberg where she worked on their global search widget, a reusable application for surfacing n data sets that could be embedded within Bloomberg’s main websites. She studied Neuroscience at Brown, where she was heavily involved in disability justice.

We're thrilled to announce that Judith has joined our team as an engineer

Welcoming Judith Lao

As the pace of technological development continues to accelerate, new things happen fast. Almost too fast to keep up with, at times.

When coming across James Hennessy's work, we were captivated by the breadth of focus. He's covered everything from the politics of facial recognition, to gaming, to Twitter's controversial acquisition.

As a people-driven firm investing in massive opportunities no matter how obscure, we couldn't help but think to ourselves: "James gets it."

Beyond an appetite for all things interesting, James has appeared or been syndicated in The Guardian, The Outline, SBS, the ABC, The Monthly, Business Insider, Yahoo! Finance, MSN, and more. He most recently served as Editor at Business Insider Australia before embarking on his own freelance entrepreneurial journey.

Today, James joins us as a Writer, and we can't wait to share more about the projects he'll work on.

We're thrilled to announce James has joined our team as a writer

Welcoming James Hennessy

Every company represents a story. While Contrary has traditionally focused on people leading up to company formation and through the early life of a young startup, the technology and markets also tell stories fundamental to each iconic business.

In this spirit, we've launched a new initiative to better understand and communicate the bigger picture of every private company: Contrary Research.

Contrary Research is central hub for thoughtful analysis of the world's fastest-growing technology companies. We do the hard work of bringing disparate insights together in a clear and concise way to help you better understand companies that are otherwise hard to dig into.

We touch on all types of technology companies, because their stories so often weave together: public, private, early and late stage, hardware, software, and everything in between. But as our content base develops, private technology companies will continue to be the focus.

So whether you're a founder, investor, operator, journalist, limited partner, or just a tech fan, Contrary Research is your home for understanding any private technology company.

To build out Contrary Research we’re excited to announce two new additions to the Contrary team. Abdullah Al-Rezwan has joined as Director of Research and Francis Odum has joined us as a Research Analyst.

Some of you may know Abdullah as Mostly Borrowed Ideas on Twitter. After spending a few years in the investing world Abdullah founded MBI Deep Dives where he provides in-depth research on a different company every month. He’s covered companies like Uber, Etsy, Shopify, and Crowdstrike. As a long-time Twitter friend, we stumbled into a conversation about the importance of private market research alongside public company research, and I knew we simply had to find a way to work together.

Francis started his career as a product manager working on data and ML tools. He became so enamored by the intersection of technology and business strategy that he founded InvestiAnalyst to share research coverage of companies like Datadog and Snowflake. With an in-the-trenches operating background, Francis elegantly approaches research from a technology-first perspective, and has been instrumental getting Contrary Research off the ground.

We couldn’t be more excited to have Abdullah and Francis helping us build Contrary Research!

To learn more about Contrary Research, check out our new website and subscribe or follow us on Twitter to get the latest private market insights.

Announcing Contrary Research. Illuminating private markets through in-depth research.

Contrary Research

Contrary is a venture firm, backed by the world's most iconic entrepreneurs, that identifies and invests in exceptional talent. We invest up to $2M in a small number of startups each year, and work closely alongside them to build enduring businesses.

Each year, we assemble a team of exceptional student Venture Partners (VPs) to work closely with us on the HQ team. They hail from 30 universities across the US and Canada, and are a diverse group of founders, engineers, designers, hustlers, researchers, writers, and everything in between.

As we head into this next school year, we're excited to recruit the next generation of students to join the Contrary family.

Your role as a Venture Partner is to be the go-to resource for founders on campus. One day you might grab coffee with someone working on a side project. The next day, you might research embedded fintech or enterprise sales software because we're evaluating relevant companies. You'll learn how to make investment decisions, how to tell a story, and how to build a startup.

We look for independent thinkers with diverse experiences -- underestimated backgrounds make for the best VPs! Previous VPs have given up a career as a pro climber to attend college, written apps with 100k+ downloads, and filmed a documentary in the Arctic. There is no specific VP archetype. The only requirements are that you love tech and early-stage startups, and will put in the time and effort to make the most of the opportunity.

We're hosting a national info session virtually on Tuesday, September 6th at 5pm PT/8pm ET. We'll give an in-depth overview of Contrary and the Venture Partner role. RSVP below.

We will review applications as they come in, so apply now. The sooner the better. We have a final deadline of September 15th at 11:59pm PT.

We generally prefer people with more than one year of school left, but have made exceptions in the past, especially for MBA students.

Our process generally includes 3 steps: a chat with a member of the Contrary HQ team, a casual interview with existing VPs at your school (if applicable), and a conversation with our founder Eric.

Reach out to vp@contrary.com with any additional questions. We're always happy to chat.

The Venture Partner role is a school-year commitment that lasts until you graduate.

Genuinely, we can't wait to hear from you, and we look forward to reading your applications!

Calling all builders, engineers, designers, investors, and everything in between - Venture Partner applications for 2022 are now open

Venture Partner Applications 2022

We first met AtoB cofounder Tushar Misra nearly 5 years ago. His experience as one of Uber India's first employees developed a deep love for all things transportation.

After leaving Uber, Tushar set out to build the infrastructure for all things mobility by starting a company called Grido. It was an ambitious undertaking: the logistics (and finances) of mobility hardware are notoriously difficult.

We were honored to invest in Grido, but COVID was a death knell, and the company went to zero.

As we worked with Tushar, our conviction in him as a founder only increased. His clarity, speed, and ambition were remarkable. Although his first company didn't work out, we were eager for another run.

That's when Tushar met AtoB cofounders Vignan and Harshita, and decided to swing for the fences.

In the couple of years since, AtoB has quietly become one of the fastest growing companies we've ever seen.

Starting with fuel cards, the AtoB team is building the financial layer for the transportation industry — the vital logistics platform that powers the rest of our economy.

We're elated to finally share more about the company, and look forward to many more years of working with Tushar and team.

Investing in AtoB

For the past two years, we’ve run programs focused on identifying and supporting ambitious builders before their startups even exist.

The feedback - both internal and external to our community - was overwhelmingly positive. We received thousands of applications and backed several startups including Zepto, now the fastest growing startup in India.

Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha said, “When my co-founder and I were still finding our bearings, Contrary kickstarted our entrepreneurial journey by writing the first cheque.” Just 2 years later, they’ve raised hundreds of millions of dollars and hired over a thousand teammates.

So this year, we’re excited to launch Contrary Sabbatical, a program designed to help you quit your job or drop out of school to build an iconic startup of your own. 

And we’re upping the stakes - investing up to $250,000 in up to 5 founders who choose to forge their own path.

### The Details

Anyone can apply. Tech employees: quit your job. Students: take a break from school. The only requirement is that you commit to spending a full year with pure focus on your company.

We will support Sabbatical founders like any other portfolio company: with connections to operators who have scaled companies from zero to thousands of employees, a diverse network of potential hires, and tactical advice from our team.

We have no industry or geographic preferences, including international founders. Many of our portfolio companies were started by immigrants, and we don’t want physical location to get in the way of a startup.

We’ll invest in companies through a standard SAFE (no discount, no MFN clauses), on a generous valuation depending on your level of progress (e.g number of users, technical milestones achieved, etc.).

**Teams can apply by filling out the application [here](https://applications.contrary.com/).**

All applications are due by 8/31, and will be considered on a rolling basis. If you need to make a decision imminently, please also note that in your application, and we’ll fast-track it.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to reach out at [sabbatical@contrary.com](mailto:sabbatical@contrary.com).

Take a year off from school or work. Get up to $250,000 to start a company of your own.

Contrary Sabbatical 2022

Going against the grain is in Contrary’s DNA. From our radical focus on people to having nearly as many engineers as investors on the team, we think constantly about what the best venture firms in the world look like a decade from now – and how they’ll win.

One of those defining beliefs is that venture firms who don’t operate like startups – i.e., having world-class products and technology at their core – won’t be around in a decade.

We’ve spent the past several months scouring the country for the right person to spearhead those efforts – helping Contrary build the most sophisticated tech and product stack in existence.

Jen Yang-Wong is that person, and we’re thrilled to welcome her to the team as our Director of Product.

One of the constants throughout the process was just how well-respected she is by colleagues old and new. She brings a level of tenacity and execution to Contrary that’s unmatched, and the results are showing already.

Prior to joining, Jen was in senior product roles at Novi and Uber Eats, and has a proven track record of both the 0 to 1 and 1 to N, helping build startups from scratch while also managing multi-billion-dollar M&A, like Uber’s purchase of Cornershop and sale of Uber Eats India to Zomato.

On the side, she’s built an impressive angel portfolio focused on backing exceptional founders, and is an active advisor to many.

We're thrilled to announce that Jen has joined our team to lead Product.

Welcoming Jen Yang-Wong

Supporting people rather than companies is the core of what we do at Contrary. That's why we've worked hard over the past five years to build the infrastructure needed to identify exceptional individuals and build deep, long-term relationships with them years before they start companies.

A key component of this approach is connecting up-and-coming builders with high-growth startups. This is not only helpful to the startups that recruit from the Contrary network, but hopefully life-changing for those who embark on the journey most aligned with their goals.

That's why today, we're excited to announce that Anthony Nardini has joined Contrary as Head of Talent!

Anthony spent a decade in leadership roles at Goldman Sachs, but found himself with the itch to start a company of his own, specifically around guiding people through their own professional journeys.

So after building a career-coaching startup, he joined On Deck to launch the First 50 Fellowship and then ran their Hiring business as they scaled from less than 20 people to over 200.

Having spent quite literally years looking for someone so thoughtful about talent in the startup world, we can't wait to share more about everything Anthony will be leading at Contrary. More importantly, as many of you will soon see for yourselves, I'd have a tough time imagining somebody more kind and genuine taking the helm. (That's not to mention the fact that Anthony's a fellow New Jersey native!)

The ecosystem we've built at Contrary — stepping up to bat and helping people while asking little in return — is the most long-term-minded approach in existence. Talent is the core piece of that puzzle, which is why I'm so excited to welcome Anthony to the Contrary team.

We're thrilled to announce that Anthony has joined our team as Head of talent.

Welcoming Anthony Nardini

Today, we’re excited to announce our investment in Uprise, building the wealth management platform for everyone. Jess and Chris have extensive experience across consumer fintech and money management, having built highly relevant products at Wise, Earnin, Robinhood, and Justworks. We don’t think there’s a better team to build the next generation of personal finance software.

This investment is particularly special for me, as Jess is my older sister. Growing up, our mom spent over 20 years as a financial analyst at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Every day, she would assess the various risk factors of banks and other financial institutions, and on rare occasions, she would be dispatched to shut down troubled banks and provide support to its panicked customers. Jess and I had a front-row seat to the importance of making smart personal financial decisions, primarily because we’ve seen what happens when things go awry.

These past few weeks and months have put this in sharp relief. Inflation is at a 40-year high, the Fed just raised its benchmark rate by 0.75 points (the largest such increase since 1994), and a recession may be just around the corner. Lightly regulated crypto companies that promised high yields and safe harbors have paused deposit withdrawals and are flirting with bankruptcy. This downturn is coupled with the continued popularity of consumer fintech that provides retail investors with newfound access to a wide variety of alternative assets.

All of this makes today’s personal finance decisions more difficult and complex. And in a down economy, mistakes are amplified. Well-compensated financial advisors help their clients navigate this environment, but their services are traditionally reserved for people with $5M in net worth or more.

Uprise aims to break down that barrier, starting with recent graduates and those a few years out of college. This generation has never had access to meaningful wealth management support and are now encountering their very first bear market. For them, Uprise is coming at just the right time.

At Contrary, we serve a similar profile across our various communities. We’ve had the privilege of seeing our Fellows, VPs, and alums become enthusiastic early users. They’ve referred friends and colleagues, provided valuable product feedback, and helped the team iterate. Most important, they have made smart and savvy financial decisions with their hard-earned money, confidently navigating an uncertain economy by leveraging advice I wish I had when I was younger.

We couldn’t be more proud to partner with Jess, Chris, and the whole Uprise team as they continue on this critical mission to expand wealth management to everyone.

Investing in Uprise

Data has driven change across industries, but data can only be as impactful as it is transparent. No dataset that businesses rely on has been less accessible or transparent than compensation data. 

Today, if you want to understand the market for compensation you have to rely on a mind-numbing network of spreadsheets and consultants. Matt and the Pave team are tackling that process head on. They're offering a better way to understand compensation and how to make sure your salary is competitive and equitable. 

The Contrary team has known Matt since before his early days at Facebook. My focus in joining Contrary is to drive later stage investments into companies that are perfectly aligned with Contrary's vision of identifying the very best people and supporting them throughout their careers. As a budding talent vortex Pave was a perfect fit. 

As we've continued to spend time working with the Pave team it's become clear that they're clearly focused on becoming a critical data tool for any company to add transparency to their compensation process.

We couldn't be more excited to back Matt and the team as they break down barriers to data-driven compensation planning. 


Investing in Pave

We met Jake Hillard and Rebecca Wong 4 years ago when they shared with us an ambitious vision: building a new approach to 3D Vision that makes sensing 100x more powerful.

This is no easy task: companies have spent billions of dollars over the past five years building large teams to push the boundaries of computer vision. "Hardware is hard" as the saying goes. But Jake and Rebecca are both persistent and brilliant. They literally invented mathematical theory and signal processing techniques that previously didn't exist, and spent years perfecting the technology.

This became Red Leader, and the results are revolutionary.

The story of Red Leader has been one of stealthy grit until now. I'll never forget how the specific configuration of cloud formations on a dreary day in Palo Alto was the deciding factor as to whether or not an early Red Leader demo unit worked properly. But with time, the hardware and software were ironed out, top executives from world-class companies joined Red Leader, and the product became ready to market.

The Red Leader difference can look like the difference between having your eyes open and closed. Look at this example -- one the current industry standard, and one using Red Leader -- moving down a street:

There's nothing else like it in the world. With this degree of 3D perception, problems such as autonomous driving will become far easier and safer. 

Jake and Rebecca are wonderful humans, stunningly smart, and their tech speaks for itself. This is why we're so excited to finally announce our pre-seed investment in Red Leader and publicly share that they have raised a $10M Series A.

Blog