History
NewSchools Venture Fund was created by social entrepreneur Kim Smith and venture capitalists John Doerr and Brook Byers, each of whom had witnessed the power of entrepreneurs to create change in other sectors, such as technology. They had seen these visionary leaders create new, innovative organizations that had a dramatic impact on their field. Recognizing the need for significant change in public education, NewSchools' founders believed that education entrepreneurs could help bring about this change if they were given strategic, hands-on support in starting and growing their organizations.
NewSchools is currently investing its third fund. For more about our first fund and second fund, see below.
NewSchools Fund I (1998 – 2002)
In our first fund, NewSchools supported nine entrepreneurial nonprofit and for-profit ventures. These organizations addressed key leverage areas within the context of standards, accountability and choice. Some of these organizations started systems of public charter schools, while others focused on preparing and supporting teachers and leaders, developing research-based curricula, or providing school performance information that parents and community members need to make effective decisions about education.
Together, these entrepreneurial organizations have reached thousands of schools and helped transform the lives of millions of students, families and communities. Through our work with these organizations and others in the field, NewSchools also began to create an influential network of leaders from across the public, private and nonprofit sectors whose collective work is accelerating the pace of change within the public education system.
Click here to read about the ventures we supported in our first fund.
NewSchools Fund II (2002-2006)
In 2002, NewSchools concluded that its work had come to play a critical role in the education reform landscape: ensuring that high-quality entrepreneurial organizations were developed and nurtured to scale. However, there was an increasing demand for new high-quality public school options for students, but there was no ready supply of leaders and organizations poised to open those schools.
To ensure that this need was met, NewSchools raised a second fund, which totaled nearly $50 million. The goal of the fund was ambitious: to help create dozens of new public charter schools and to develop organizations with the capacity to provide thousands of underserved students with an excellent education. Toward this end, the fund supported more than a dozen charter management organizations (CMOs) that today collectively manage more than 100 schools that serve close to 30,000 students. These organizations are tightly managed nonprofit systems of charter schools that bring more consistent quality and greater scale to the growing charter school movement. In addition, the fund invested in a variety of charter school support organizations. These organizations provide charter school operators with the critical infrastructure they need to continue growing with quality, such as facilities development, administrative services and academic support.
During this time, NewSchools also began to explore how it could help all public school systems become more performance-driven. We commissioned practice-based research and documented lessons learned from our work. NewSchools regularly brought the entrepreneurs in its portfolio together with one another by convening them in person and by developing a Web-based platform for them to exchange ideas and resources on a more regular basis. In addition, we continued to connect these entrepreneurs’ work with the broader field through events like the annual NewSchools Summit.
Click here to read about the ventures we supported in our second fund.