San Francisco | Founder to Fund: The Journey from Building Companies to Backing Them
What does it really mean to move from building startups to building a fund and backing startups?
Join LSE Generate & Orrick for an intimate conversation with Dhruv Washishth, founding partner of Paradigm Shift Capital, exploring a career that spans operating on both sides of the table.
Dhruv has worked across San Francisco, London and Bangalore.
He's been a 2X founder and worked on international growth at Segment (Acquired by Twilio for $3.2B).
In 2018, he received the EB1A 'Alien of Extraordinary Ability' Green Card from the US Government, he now lives in the Bay Area and backs the most exciting frontier tech startups in the world.
He has built startups in multiple contexts - raising venture capital in the Bay Area, bootstrapping a business in India, and launching a founder-led venture fund after relocating to San Francisco. Drawing on those experiences, this session explores how perspective shifts when operators become investors, and what founders often misunderstand about capital, risk, and conviction.
Grounded in real decisions rather than frameworks, the conversation focuses on how conviction is formed in practice, why fundraising outcomes differ between founders, and how shifts such as AI, solo founding, and capital efficiency are reshaping expectations in the Bay Area.
Designed for founders, operators, and early-stage investors active in the Bay Area startup ecosystem. We'll follow with a drinks reception/dinner.
If you have any further questions, would like to bring a +1, or would like to work with us please contact Emma at [email protected]
We will be hosting this event at the Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe HQ in Downtown SF (405 Howard St). Orrick is a global law firm at the centre of technology, capital, and innovation - advising the companies and investors shaping tomorrow’s economy.
LSE Generate is the award-winning centre for entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics. We support thousands of alum build their businesses globally, with the school producing over 25,000 entrepreneurs (more than any other UK university), including 26+ unicorns, such as Allbirds, Scalable Capital, OakNorth, and Lendable.
San Francisco is one of our 22+ International Chapters & we will running more events here this year (stay tuned!)