Harvard in Tech AI Edition: Brandon Farwell, GP at Xfund, and Vincent Zhang, co-founder of Thinkverse
I spoke with Brandon Farwell (HBS ’14 grad), general partner at Xfund, an early stage venture capital firm with portfolio companies including Kensho, Philo, Guideline, Tonic, and Zumper. I also spoke with Vincent Zhang (HBS ’23 grad), co-founder of Thinkverse, a startup that provides an AI math tutor for every K-12 student. Vincent met Brandon while at Harvard Business School, and Thinkverse is an Xfund portfolio company. It was super fun interviewing Vincent and Brandon together to get the founder and funder perspective!
Brandon Farwell, general partner at Xfund
Brandon’s journey in tech is rooted in his deep connection to Silicon Valley. He was born in the Bay and attended Stanford University graduating in 2008 — at Stanford, he led the student-run entrepreneurship club (Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students, BASES). With some college mates, he helped build and commercialize a tool to help high school students predict their chance of admissions at colleges. It was in college when he caught the founder bug. He helped run BASES, where he met Patrick Chung who was investing at NEA at the time; Patrick became a mentor to Brandon, sponsor to BASES, and would later go on to found Xfund.
Brandon started in venture capital 15 years ago — he spent 5 years at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which is now Threshold Ventures. He worked on investments in companies including SpaceX, Tesla, Twilio, Box, and Yammer. These experiences gave him a front row seat to the rise of these iconic companies. Brandon completed his MBA at Harvard Business School in 2014, and helped build the portfolio at a seed firm called RV that backed many seed stage startups coming out of the Stanford, Harvard and other university ecosystems including Robinhood, Patreon, Matterport,Vicarious Surgical, Boom Supersonic, and others.
Brandon joined Xfund in 2017, partnering up with long-time friend and mentor Patrick Chung. He had met Patrick Chung years earlier when Brandon was at Stanford and Patrick was a partner at NEA. Patrick had been quite involved in the Stanford entrepreneurship ecosystem, which is where he met Sam Altman who was then still in college and would soon drop out to found his first company, Loopt, an interoperable social mapping service helping people use their location to discover the world around them. Patrick would become Sam’s first investor in Loopt. In 2011, Harvard was converting the engineering department to a full fledged school of engineering (SEAS) and helped birth VC firm, Xfund. Patrick founded Xfund and funded companies coming out of the growing engineering ecosystem as well as the Harvard Innovation Lab which was founded around the same time. One of these early Harvard Innovation Lab companies that Patrick invested in is Philo, which is now one of the fastest growing American internet TV companies. The cofounder of Philo, Tuan Ho (Harvard ‘09), recently joined Xfund as an investing partner, a wonderful full circle story! Kensho is another success story from Xfund and Harvard. Kensho’s founder and CEO, Daniel Nadler, was a PhD student in economics at Harvard when Xfund first connected with him and became his first investor. Kensho was later sold to S&P Global for over $550 million in the largest AI exit at the time in 2018.
Xfund was founded to identify and support founders at the earliest stages, including many Harvard students. Xfund is now on its 3rd fund and focused on enterprise, consumer, and digital health investments. In the boom of 2021, Xfund was hesitant to deploy because a lot of capital across venture capital was going into industries that didn’t seem sustainable. Brandon believes that the current generative AI boom does however have longevity, so Xfund has been making investments in AI, including in Thinkverse (which we’ll cover in the second part of the interview).
Reflecting on 15 years in venture capital, Brandon notes some of the changes he has seen. When he first started in venture, Series A rounds were quite a bit smaller at $3-$5 million rounds with a $6 million pre money valuation. In those early years, few startups focused on impact or sustainability. In recent years, there’s a noticeable shift — more founders are driven by missions that extend beyond mere profitability. This current generation of entrepreneurs cares deeply about the ethical and long-term impacts of their businesses. Brandon believes that this focus on “doing good while doing well” is one of the most significant shifts in the venture landscape. It’s not just about financial returns anymore; it’s about the long term effects a business can have on the world. There are also larger expectations and higher stakes with more capital and more potential to build truly massive companies. Xfund recently partnered with the Engineering and Entrepreneurship Center at Stanford — Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) to launch the Xfund Ethics Fellows to help budding founders develop and practice ethical principles early in their entrepreneurial journeys.
On assessing founders and companies at the earliest stages, Brandon emphasizes the importance of underwriting to the individual. Understand the founder’s unique advantage, their unfair edge, their key differentiator. For example, Cameron Andrews, the founder of Sirona and Stanford ’18 grad, an Xfund portfolio company building an AI powered, cloud native radiology operating system, came from a family of radiologists. When he was starting Sirona, Cameron had unparalleled insight into the industry, connections to clinics, and access to proprietary data for model training. That type of specialized industry knowledge and network is something that would take years for others to achieve. Founders need to find ways to set off on their voyage with unfair advantages that they can leverage to create and maintain a moat. Brandon also underscores the importance of understanding how the founder exploits these unfair advantages. When Brandon was exploring an investment in Thinkverse, for example, he asked Vincent to show him the product in their first meeting. Then, when they met again months later, the product was exceptionally superior to the prior version, and the go to market work had progressed significantly. For example, the team acquired a GTM partner that would unlock significant distribution immediately out of the gates. Through getting to know founders over time, Brandon can truly see how they run the ship and with what product velocity. Another key factor Brandon looks for is the why now, the timing. Is this idea too early? Does it have the tech enablement and macro tailwinds? With the AI boom and the pandemic’s adverse effects on STEM/math education in America, Thinkverse’s goal to democratize personalized math education with AI made a ton of sense.
On advice he would give to his younger self at Harvard Business School, Brandon notes: put yourself in uncomfortable and vulnerable positions. It can be easy to just mingle with people who are in your circles of interest and take a myopic view when network building, but you should cast a wide net. Get to know people above and below you in school. Get involved in different types of student groups and get to know people from all kinds of backgrounds. Get to know your professors — Brandon’s professors from both Stanford and HBS are still his mentors today, and he does guest lectures and office hours with many of them.
Vincent Zhang, founder of Thinkverse
Thinkverse is Vincent’s 3rd company over the last 12 years. Thinkverse was born from Vincent’s own struggles with math. He was a first-generation immigrant, and his parents didn’t have a math background and hadn’t gone to college. His parents spent their savings on getting tutoring help for him, and it helped him excel in school and eventually graduate from Harvard with his MBA. In the US, 73% of students are not proficient in math, but tutoring costs are expensive — Vincent’s own tutoring had cost $50-$100 per hour, and for schools, tutoring can cost $3K per student per year.
Vincent saw the generative AI boom in late 2022 and was excited about the impact that technology could have. Through generative AI, Vincent saw the potential to deliver the same support as a human tutor at 100x less the cost. Vincent saw a path to creating an AI math tutor for every student.
When reflecting on the experiences that shaped his founder journey the most, Vincent talks about his parents. When he was 6 years old, his parents quit their jobs and started a business. Neither of them had gone to college, but through hard work, they built a successful business from scratch. Vincent watched them maintain a growth mindset. They showed him resilience and risk taking, which inspired him to found a company as well. Shortly after moving to Canada in his 2nd year of college, Vincent started his own company and grew it to be one of the largest tutoring businesses in Canada. Vincent saw first hand that creating impact and changing the trajectory of many people’s lives can lead to financial rewards as well. His first founding experience taught him what it takes to build something meaningful that solves a problem for people. Vincent highly encourages anyone interested to start a company in college — it’s a great way to take a risk in a derisked manner with the least amount of opportunity cost.
On staying up to date with AI developments, Vincent says he spends time speaking to engineers who are at the forefront of the technology and can often draw signal from the noise. Don’t just follow the hype — figure out whether the technology is solving a real user problem. Spend time with users and carefully validate with your customers. Also spend time with other AI founders, including those outside of our industry — they can often bring a fresh perspective and out of the box ideas.
On advice he would give his younger Harvard self, Vincent jokingly says “take more naps!” On a more serious note, he underscores the importance of making room for flexibility and spontaneity. Don’t overplan so you have time in your day to go to cool events or talks or read about something new that excites you. Say yes to more opportunities and be adaptive.
