Khalil Fuller

Snapshot

Role: Partner & Head of Dorm at Pear VC (joined Aug 2024). Runs Pear Dorm — Pear’s collection of programs supporting student/college founders “from first years to PhD candidates.”
Focus: Generalist investor at the absolute earliest (idea/student) stage. Drawn to founders who balance conviction with curiosity, “default to action,” and have “a ridiculously high degree of agency.”
Location: Berkeley, CA.
The 1-liner: A multi-time founder turned earliest-stage investor who started his first company months into freshman year at Brown — now Pear’s gateway for student builders.
Handle: LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/khalilfuller.

Founder pedigree (~15 yrs building before VC): Companies he started collectively reached $100M+ revenue and 5M+ users.
- Co-Founder & CEO, Learn Fresh — K-12 edtech making math fun via the stats/celebrity of pro sports (NBA Math Hoops).
- Co-Founder & President, Boundless — venture studio building/backing vertical-SaaS in overlooked markets.
- Founder, Trak Changes — productivity software for the construction industry.
- Founder & CEO, Gift Card Bank — nonprofit distributing gift cards to low-income families.
- Also founded GSBuilds at Stanford (the definitive database of GSB-founded companies + founder community).
Education: Brown University (undergrad — started his first company there) · Stanford GSB (MBA) + MA Education, as a Knight-Hennessy Scholar. Earlier ties to MassChallenge.
Why he runs Dorm: “I have a particular kinship with student entrepreneurs” — he started companies during undergrad and grad school and lived “the student-entrepreneur hustle” (fellowships, grants, weighing dropping out, flying to partner meetings “while my friends are at parties”).

Stage/role: Earliest stage (idea / student-founder), generalist. Operating from inside Pear Dorm; the on-ramp into Pear’s broader partnership (he escalates promising founders to the right thematic partner — exactly what he did for init.inc).
What he looks for: “founders who balance conviction in their abilities with a curiosity to continually learn, who default to action and have a ridiculously high degree of agency, and who know that building anything great requires a stellar team and a lot of hard work.”
Philosophy: Pays forward the early belief he got — “my life has been changed by the advisors and mentors who believed in me before I fully believed in myself, and invested in me ridiculously early, before I was a ‘good’ investment.”

LinkedIn announcement (Aug 2024) of joining Pear — the fullest statement of his founder background + Dorm philosophy (quoted above). Mar Hershenson’s intro confirms “15 years of entrepreneurial experience… idea to product-market fit multiple times, which is quite rare.”
Deeper podcast/writing inventory ^[needs-research] (medium-depth page; Khalil has already done his job for us — depth deferred unless he re-enters the active path).
Social: LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/khalilfuller. X handle ^[needs-research].

Lives in Berkeley with his wife Hadley and their Australian Shepherd named Thisbe.
Deep edtech / education + sports thread (Learn Fresh = math via pro-sports stats); strong mission/equity orientation (Gift Card Bank nonprofit; serving “overlooked markets”).
Brown + Stanford GSB; Knight-Hennessy Scholar community.

Relationship facts: Khalil is the entry node — he opened Pear and escalated init.inc to the decision-makers, and is the social-proof origin of the Pejman/Arash path. He acts as a friendly internal champion at Pear.
Conversation log (newest first):
- 2026-05-01 — Khalil escalated — connected Sazzad to Pejman Nozad (Founding Managing Partner). His path now drives the firm-level relationship through Pejman → Arash Afrakhteh.
- 2026-04-27 — Sazzad sent product blurb (“AI lab for back-office white-collar work; ITSM wedge; pareto-efficient agent+human loop”).
- 2026-04-23 — First meeting with Khalil (introduced via Rishi + Isaiah).
Mutual connections / warm path: Rishi + Isaiah → Khalil (entry) → Pejman Nozad → Arash Afrakhteh.
Personal & rapport notes: Founder-to-founder energy; high agency, bias-to-action; mission/education-driven. Rapport surfaces: edtech/sports, the student-founder grind, dog person (Thisbe the Aussie). He believes in backing people “before they’re a ‘good’ investment,” and he engaged with init early.
Live stage: tracked in the CRM — escalated; Pear relationship now lives with Pejman/Arash.

No prior wiki mention of Khalil. He resolves part of the orphan Pear VC linkage from Rishi’s connector stub. No conflict.