News

Education Elements raises $6 million to continue helping schools transition to blended learning

Palo Alto, CA—March 7, 2012—Education Elements, a pioneer in helping schools blend technology into everyday instruction, announced today that it has closed a $6 million round of funding. The round was led by Harmony Partners and joined by Rethink Education (which includes experienced educational technology investors Seavest Ventures, Jonathan Sackler, Matt Greenfield and Brian Olson) and individual investor Eff Martin of Anthos Capital, as well as by prior investors Tugboat Ventures, NewSchools […] Read more

The Educators

Christina Hall and Jennifer Green work to train better prepared, better informed city teachers.“Staggering.” That’s the word Jennifer Green uses. And she repeats it: “It’s staggering to realize you have students who have made it to the eleventh grade without being able to decode words on a page.”…The problem that UTC seeks to solve, says Julie Mikuta, a partner at the San Francisco-based NewSchools Venture Fund, which provided $1.9 million in startup […] Read more

Startups Seek to Master the Education Market

The increasing flow of venture capital into K-12 and heightened interest in educational technology are creating opportunities for market newcomersLess than a year ago, Sam Chaudhary and Liam Don met at the University of Cambridge in England during a so-called startup weekend, an event where would-be entrepreneurs, Web designers, and software developers gathered to brainstorm for 54 hours straight.The two had coffee in London about a month later and hatched an idea. Within […] Read more

NewSchools Venture Fund Launches Education Technology Seed Fund

The NewSchools Venture Fund in San Francisco has announced the launch of a fund that will provide support to entrepreneurs working to develop education technology tools, applications, content, and services designed to improve opportunities for children from low-income communities.Unlike NewSchools’s Innovation Fund, which invests in organizations based on their potential to influence broader systems, the Education Technology Seed Fund will provide money, guidance, and advice to early stage companies in the educational tools marketplace.[Read the full article […] Read more

NewSchools Venture Fund Announces Early-Stage Education Technology Fund to Accelerate Student Achievement

San Francisco, CA—January 25, 2012—NewSchools Venture Fund today announced the creation of an Education Technology Seed Fund, a new initiative to invest in entrepreneurs developing education technology tools, applications, content, and services that will significantly improve education opportunities for children from low-income communities. The Seed Fund was created to make investments in early-stage, pre-Series A education technology companies often overlooked by the traditional investing community because of their focus on schools.  The […] Read more

PIE Network Welcomes Three Leading Education Reformers to Board of Directors

Three of the country’s top education reformers have joined the Board of Directors of the Policy Innovators in Education (PIE) Network, which supports and connects 34 advocacy groups working to improve education across the country.The new board members are:Denis Calabrese, president of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation in Houston, known for its major contributions to K–12 education reform. He is a public policy and communications expert who has advised government and corporate leaders […] Read more

What Three Big EdTech Investments Say About The Future Of Education

This past week saw venture and private investors grabbing a pen to write checks to support three significant edtech trends: the move toward supporting Common Core standards, the use of “adaptive” learning technologies, and an increase in social media in education.The underlying theme, says Gloria Lee, chief operating officer of NewSchools Venture Fund, is about making education truly personalized for learners. “Tech tools that make it easier, faster, more effective—more personalized for […] Read more

NewSchools Venture Fund leads $1.1 Million funding round for MasteryConnect

MasteryConnect Gives Teachers Real-Time Data on Student Progress and Provides Free Tools for Teachers to Collaborate Around Common Core Standards; the Funding Round includes Learn Capital, Imagine K12, and Angel Investors San Francisco, CA—December 7, 2011—NewSchools Venture Fund today announced that MasteryConnect, an education technology company that seeks to support teachers in the transition to the Common Core by making it simple and easy for them to find, administer, score, and track student […] Read more

Initiative aims for 100,000 new STEM teachers

Partnership draws on member organizations’ expertise in recruiting and retaining talented educatorsA new national movement aims to increase the supply of math and science teachers and retain excellent teachers currently in U.S. classrooms by preparing 100,000 new math and science teachers over the next 10 years.Led by Carnegie Corporation of New York, Opportunity Equation, the NewSchools Venture Fund, and the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation, the 100Kin10 initiative was sparked by President Obama’s […] Read more

NewSchools Announces $3 Million in Grants for Expansion of Four High-Performing Boston Charter Schools

Boston, MA—November 9, 2011—NewSchools Venture Fund today announced grants totaling over $3 million to four growing charter school organizations in Boston, as part of its Boston Charter School Replication Fund. The funding includes grants to Edward W. Brooke Charter School, Roxbury Preparatory Charter School, Excel Academies, and MATCH Public Charter Schools, each of which opened at least one new school this fall.  The grants are the first investments from the Boston Charter […] Read more