fbpx

Shauntel Garvey And Partners Launch $82M Fund Targeting Education

Shauntel Garvey And Partners Launch $82M Fund Targeting Education

 

Shauntel Garvey is used to being the only — or one of a few — breaking barriers in venture capital.

Entering the VC world, she, of course, was confronted by the “good-old-boys’ network” but Garvey, 34, pushed past that and. like other times, found herself the only Black person, the only person of color and only woman in the room.

Garvey is also one of just a few venture capitalists working to improve America’s education system. And she is proving you can make money in the education space while doing good.

Now Garvey has just launched her second venture, Reach II. Garvey and her team just completed close of Reach II, a $82M Fund to invest in exceptional, mission-driven entrepreneurs tackling challenges in education. Garvey, along with the other general partners for this fund, Jennifer Carolan, Wayee Chu, and Esteban Sosnik, will lead seed through Series B investments in companies spanning early childhood, K-12, higher education and lifelong learning.

“Reach II marks our third fund together as an investment team (our first fund was NSVF Seed). Beyond our GPs, Chian Gong was promoted to principal, we hired James Kim as a new associate and venture partners, Jen Wu and Jim Lobdell are valuable portfolio support leaders,” the company reported in Medium.

Reach Capital aims to increase access to educational opportunities through educational experiences, tools, and products.

“Reach Capital has its origins in NewSchools Venture Fund, where we launched the NSVF Seed Fund in 2011. When we began investing, the educational technology industry was nascent, so while at NSVF Seed Fund we focused our mission on building the K-12 edtech ecosystem,” the company reported.

Among the 43 investments Reach Capital has made thus far are: BrightBytes, Newsela, and NoRedInk, showcasing the power of technology to fundamentally change teaching and learning in K-12 schools. Those investments became part of the Reach Capital family when it launched in 2015.

The goal of Silicon Valley-based Reach is to tackle America’s education gap by investing in early-stage technology that aims to give kids from all backgrounds a shot at classroom success.

“To date, (Garvey) has invested in several platforms that help teachers better manage their classrooms, software for English-language learners and educators, and artificial intelligence chatbots that improve the transition from high school to college, among many others,” Ozy reported.

Education has always been in the forefront for Garvey, who was raised in Denver before moving to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in ninth grade, when her mom took a position as a professor at Elon University. Things got off to a rocky start for Garvey in her new school. The school wanted to put Garvey into remedial classes even though her transcript was filled with As. Her mom would not allow this to happen.

“I’m so fortunate I had her as a parent to really push for me, because I couldn’t advocate for myself at the time,” Garvey told Ozy. Garvey wound up graduating as her class valedictorian. It was, she said, “a great throw-it-back-in-your-face moment.”

Garvey went on to attend MIT, where she studied chemical engineering. Following graduation, she worked at Proctor & Gamble. But she realized the corporate world was not for her and she went back to school. She entered Stanford’s dual master of business administration–master of education program.

While at Stanford, Garvey took an innovations in teaching class taught by Jennifer Carolan, now a general partner at Reach, Ozy reported. In 2015, the two launched the nonprofit Reach Capital.

Through Reach I, the team invested $53M in 35 companies across the learning lifecycle from early childhood to lifelong learning. These investments included:

  • WriteLab for both K-12 and higher education and it helps to increase the rate at which students write and receive customized, timely feedback, a cycle that develops the student’s writing abilities.
  • Nearpod, a platform using digital technologies to transform instruction and includes a feature called “virtual field trips,” where students who have never left their neighborhoods can walk across the Golden Gate Bridge or visit the Great Pyramid of Giza, all from their classroom.
  • Epic! is “Netflix for ebooks,” allowing access to over 25,000 children’s books and other online content for a nominal monthly fee that is waived for all verified educators.
  • Holberton School which creates a project-based alternative to college for software engineers, solving the need for faster, more rigorous technical training to meet the demands of a rapidly changing economy.

With Reach II, Garvey and her team plan to expand their reach. Among the first set of investments they have made from Reach II are:

  • Ellevation, the leading provider of English-language learning (ELL) management software.
  • Outschool, a marketplace for synchronous, live, online classes for K-12 learners.
  • Winnie, a platform to help millennials with parenting.

“I want to say that because of the products we invested in, people have better social mobility,” Garvey said.