Join Contrary Capital as a Venture Partner at Michigan
A dive into one of the best opportunities for entrepreneurial students at Michigan + a recap of V1's kickoff event. 🔥
We’re starting off this edition with a special opportunity.
Backed by founders from Facebook, Tesla, Reddit, and many others, Contrary is a venture fund that identifies the world’s top engineers, designers, and product minds emerging from universities, connects them with a close-knit, career-long support community, and invests in companies they start or join.
Learn more about becoming a venture partner at the University of Michigan ⚡
I’m Samay, one of the founders of V1 — and I’m also a Venture Partner at Contrary. If you’re excited by the idea of meeting smart founders, joining a world-class network of young professionals, and delving into the startup space, you should apply to Contrary.
Contrary has been the highlight of my college experience. I’ve met some of my closest friends, learned a ton about emerging startups and venture capital, and have helped grow the entrepreneurship scene at Michigan.
Now, we’re looking for the next generation of venture partners from Michigan. You can be from any major or school (undergraduate or graduate). Here’s a look at last year’s class of venture partners.
Interested? Learn more here.
Make sure to sign up for the Michigan Pod meet and greet! It’ll be in-person and you’ll be able to meet the Michigan pod directly!
Virtual National Info Session & Application: Tuesday, September 7th at 5 pm PT/8pm ET: https://contrarycap.com/join
IN PERSON: Michigan Pod Meet & Greet Signup: Wednesday, September 8th at 8 PM ET:
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Samay at samay@umich.edu.
V1 Kickoff Recap 🚀
Kickoff was an absolute blast. Thank you to all who came out.
Special shoutouts to Drew, Christine, Varun, Dheera, Divya for event logistics and Noah for taking some fire photos.
We got to meet so many of you, mix with fellow student entrepreneurs, and enjoy an evening of snacks, drinks, and games 😊 Thanks to MProduct, Contrary, StartUM & SEPi for their amazing effort in co-hosting the event.
As the community for ambitious student builders at UM, we were impressed by the breadth and depth of our community. If you're new to the technology, business, or startup world, this was a great time to get your questions answered and meet like-minded peers. We're super excited to see how you can connect and come up with amazing products as we host more events & activities in the semester! ⚡️
Opportunities 🔍
Software Engineer Intern @ Zage: Credit card payments still run through phone lines and require between 7-10 middlemen to process every single transaction. These legacy systems enrich the big banks and card networks at the expense of consumers and merchants, resulting in $29B in annual credit card fraud and exorbitant fees for merchants, just to name a few problems.
Zage is a trailblazer in Fintech’s long overdue streamlining process. They're building APIs that enable online merchants to process payments at the lowest fees, fastest processing times, and with no risk at all. Their infrastructure cuts out every single middleman and runs within the confines of regulations in the US.
If you're a full-stack and crypto developer interested in getting a ton of ownership, opportunities to wear many hats, and a competitive salary, make sure to apply here. Feel free to reach to @nate in the Discord or his friend Kelvin Yu, a founding-engineer, for more details!
What We're Reading 🧠
Catch the latest scoops from other V1 members
From passion to hobby to startup – TechCrunch
Fintech startup Jeeves raises $57M, goes from YC to $500M valuation in one year
Unicorn Startups by Industry and Lessons from the $1B+ Club
That’s all for today’s newsletter but if you have any specific requests of what you’d like to see in future editions, any ideas for the V1 Community, want to contribute to the newsletter, or any thoughts at all please reach out to us via email or DM us on Twitter!
And if you’ve read all this and still aren’t in the Discord community, what’s holding you back? Join here!