NewSchools Seed Fund Newsletter
June 26, 2014 Issue IX
Dear Friends,
It was wonderful to see many of you this week at the NewSchools Summit on Wednesday. We look forward to seeing some of you next month at our annual edtech portfolio convening on Wednesday June 4th in Napa.
It’s hard to believe, but this month we passed the halfway point for Seed Fund I and expect to be fully invested as of late next year. Since our launch in December of 2011, we’ve been investing at a pace of about one new investment per month bringing us to 28 investments. Most of our team time has been dedicated to meeting new entrepreneurs, doing diligence and supporting our portfolio companies.
Since the start, our focus has been on catalyzing the early stage education technology market by seeding impact-oriented entrepreneurs targeting K-12 education. We prioritize a) meaningful usage at scale and b) co-investment leverage, which means we track both the reach and engagement of our companies (among many other metrics) and co-investment dollars made through direct introductions by our team.
Here are some of our topline numbers for our mid-way point:
Take care,
Jennifer and Seed Fund Team
It was wonderful to see many of you this week at the NewSchools Summit on Wednesday. We look forward to seeing some of you next month at our annual edtech portfolio convening on Wednesday June 4th in Napa.
It’s hard to believe, but this month we passed the halfway point for Seed Fund I and expect to be fully invested as of late next year. Since our launch in December of 2011, we’ve been investing at a pace of about one new investment per month bringing us to 28 investments. Most of our team time has been dedicated to meeting new entrepreneurs, doing diligence and supporting our portfolio companies.
Since the start, our focus has been on catalyzing the early stage education technology market by seeding impact-oriented entrepreneurs targeting K-12 education. We prioritize a) meaningful usage at scale and b) co-investment leverage, which means we track both the reach and engagement of our companies (among many other metrics) and co-investment dollars made through direct introductions by our team.
Here are some of our topline numbers for our mid-way point:
- $3.4M – total invested to date
- $6.6X – dollars leveraged; for every dollar we invest, we were able to syndicate, on average, another $6.8 dollars ($22M) through introductions to other funders
- 19 – companies in which we were “first money in” (not including accelerator investment)
- 3 – Entrepreneur-in-Residence’s: Curriculet (Jason Singer), Decision Science (Professor Marguerite Roza & Victor Reinoso), YouCubed (Professor Jo Boaler)
- 2 – nonprofits: ReadWorks & CodeNow
- 8 – investments in ImagineK12 graduates
- 9 – co-investments with Kapor Capital
- 6 – co-investments or follow-on investment from Rethink Education
Take care,
Jennifer and Seed Fund Team