Khalil Fuller

Background

Khalil Fuller is a Partner and Head of Dorm at Pear VC, the pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm based in Palo Alto, CA ¹. He joined Pear in September 2024 ².

Fuller graduated from Brown University in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in Education ³. While at Brown, he served as Vice President of the Brown Entrepreneurship Program and was captain of the club ice hockey team ³. He is a QuestBridge Scholar ⁴. He went on to earn an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University as a Knight-Hennessy Scholar in 2018 ³.

Before joining Pear, Fuller built a career as a serial founder. He co-founded Learn Fresh in 2010, a nonprofit K-12 edtech company that makes mathematics engaging through professional sports statistics and celebrity ⁵. Learn Fresh developed and distributed NBA Math Hoops, an NBA-licensed board game curriculum for elementary and middle school students, which reached learners across 30 U.S. states ³. During his time leading Learn Fresh, Fuller was named to Forbes’ list of top social entrepreneurs under 30, won the Westly Prize for young innovators in California, and was named an Echoing Green fellow for social entrepreneurs ³.

Fuller subsequently co-founded Boundless, a venture studio focused on building vertical SaaS companies in overlooked markets ⁶. Boundless operated as a holding company rather than a fund, ideating and building its own companies rather than investing in external startups ⁶. One of the companies built under the Boundless umbrella was Trak Changes, a productivity software tool for the construction industry ⁶. Fuller also founded Gift Card Bank, a nonprofit distributing gift cards to low-income families in need ¹.

In addition to his founding activity, Fuller ran GSBuilds, a Substack newsletter with over 3,000 subscribers tracking Stanford GSB alumni founders and their startup milestones ⁷. He maintained editorial independence from GSBuilds after joining Pear ⁷.

Cumulatively, the companies Fuller founded reached over $100M in revenue and 5M+ users ¹. At Pear, he leads the Pear Dorm program, which partners with undergraduate and graduate students at Stanford, Berkeley, and other universities to support student founders ⁸.

Stated Thesis

Fuller publicly describes his investment approach as generalist, targeting founders across all industries who are taking their first steps on the startup journey ¹. In his own words: “I aspire to be the easy call for founders when things are hard. The messiest, amorphous early days that scare most investors are what excite me.” ¹

His stated focus is on founders who have developed deep conviction about a problem: he is specifically excited to back those who “have fallen in love with a problem area and cannot rest until they drive to ground truth and engineer a dramatic improvement” ¹. He values both domain experts and complete outsiders approaching problems with a fresh perspective, and prizes high agency in founders — defined as action-oriented builders who move from idea to experiment quickly ¹.

On what he looks for: Fuller frames his ideal investment as a founder who balances conviction (deep belief in the problem) with curiosity (relentless testing and willingness to improve) ¹. This mirrors his own founding experience: his companies ranged from a nonprofit edtech program to a vertical SaaS venture studio, indicating a genuine pattern of problem-first, sector-agnostic thinking.

Inferred Thesis

Data limitations: Fuller joined Pear VC in September 2024 and has been in the role for approximately 18 months as of March 2026. No public investment announcements have been attributed to him individually in that period. Pear VC’s blog posts name specific partners for some investments (e.g., Mar Hershenson on Amari AI, Kathleen Estreich on Dealops, Ryan Sells on Socratix AI, Payam Banazadeh on Parallax Worlds) but none so far specifically credit Khalil Fuller ^9101112. His role as Head of Dorm means a significant portion of his deal flow comes through the Pear Dorm program (student founders at Stanford, Berkeley, and affiliated universities), where winning teams receive a $100K uncapped SAFE investment ⁸.

Stage distribution: Consistent with the Pear Dorm program structure, Fuller’s investments are expected to be concentrated at pre-seed and seed, with many coming before a product exists ⁸. Pear VC overall invests at pre-seed and seed stages ¹³.

Sector pattern (qualitative, based on stated thesis and prior founding history): Fuller self-describes as a generalist investor. His founding companies spanned edtech (Learn Fresh), vertical SaaS (Boundless, Trak Changes, Stationwise), and nonprofit/consumer (Gift Card Bank). This operator background suggests comfort across education, construction tech, and consumer software — but no sector concentration is verifiable from portfolio data at this time.

Founder profile preferences: Fuller’s stated thesis and public commentary strongly emphasize the quality of the founder over the sector or product. He is specifically attracted to founders in the “amorphous early days” before product-market fit — a preference that is consistent with the Pear Dorm mandate, which funds student founders often before they have any customers or product ⁸. His own founding experience at a nonprofit suggests he may be more comfortable than typical seed investors with non-traditional paths to scale (nonprofit → commercial, studio model, education-first).

Geographic focus: The Pear Dorm program currently operates at Stanford and Berkeley, suggesting a Bay Area concentration in Fuller’s deal flow ⁸. However, Pear VC as a firm has a nationally distributed portfolio.

Note: This inferred thesis is based on publicly available information about Fuller’s role and prior background, not on a verified portfolio table. As additional Khalil Fuller-attributed investments become publicly documented, this section should be updated.

Portfolio

No investments have been publicly attributed to Khalil Fuller individually since he joined Pear VC in September 2024. The Pear Dorm Competition awards winning teams a $100K uncapped SAFE investment; these deals are made through the Pear Dorm program that Fuller leads, but individual winning companies have not been announced publicly as of March 2026 ⁸.

Pear VC as a firm made 34 investments in 2025 and 4 investments in early 2026 ¹⁴, but investment attribution to specific partners is not systematically disclosed. The table below will be updated as investments attributable to Fuller are publicly confirmed.

No verified individual investments documented as of March 2026.

In Their Own Words

On his investment philosophy and what he looks for:

“I aspire to be the easy call for founders when things are hard. The messiest, amorphous early days that scare most investors are what excite me.” ¹

On what he values in founders:

“As a generalist investor, I’m excited to meet founders across industries who are taking the first few steps of their startup journey, whether they are domain experts or complete outsiders coming at something with a fresh perspective. Whether they’re long-time subject matter experts or newcomers with little more than a keen instinct to improve, I’m looking for founders who have fallen in love with a problem area and cannot rest until they drive to ground truth and engineer a dramatic improvement.” ¹

On joining Pear VC (from his LinkedIn announcement, September 2024):

“I’m joining Pear VC as a Partner and the Head of Dorm!” ²

On maintaining the GSBuilds newsletter’s independence after joining Pear:

“GSBuilds will remain independent and unchanged. The impartiality of GSBuilds and our pure mission of supporting the GSB founder community is what makes this initiative special.” ⁷

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials about working with Khalil Fuller as an investor were found. Fuller joined Pear VC in September 2024 and has been in the role for approximately 18 months as of March 2026; the pool of founders who have worked with him directly in a post-investment capacity is small and no testimonials have surfaced in public sources, product launch posts, Twitter/X, or press coverage searched for this profile.

Sources