NewSchools Venture Fund

www.newschools.org

VCMatch tracks NewSchools Venture Fund as an investor focused on Edtech, AI/ML, and Enterprise SaaS companies, Pre-Seed and Seed rounds, United States, Nationwide (Us), and Oakland, Ca markets, and $50k to $250k check sizes. Upload your deck to compare your startup against the full private matching profile.

Check Size

$50k to $250k

Stages

Pre-Seed, Seed

Focus Areas

Edtech, AI/ML, Enterprise SaaS

Geography

United States, nationwide (US), and Oakland, CA

Investment Thesis

NewSchools operates as a venture philanthropy that funds and supports entrepreneurial teams to rebuild public education so it becomes a gateway to opportunity rather than a barrier. They combine flexible capital with non-financial supports (advisory review, convenings, expert support) and run open funding opportunities and innovation challenges to surface diverse ideas—having announced “more than $23 million in new investments and reinvestments to over 80 ventures, chosen from 1,600 applicants” and, in 2024, $13.4M for 54 ventures. Equity and inclusion are central to their theory of change: diversifying who they fund and who leads their organization is treated as a lever to drive innovation and improved student outcomes.

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Investment Focus

Who should take a closer look

NewSchools Venture Fund is most relevant for founders raising Pre-Seed and Seed rounds in Edtech, AI/ML, Enterprise SaaS, and Marketplace, especially across United States, nationwide (US), and Oakland, CA, with public check-size signals around $50k to $250k.

Focus statement

NewSchools focuses on K–12 innovations — new schools, educator workforce models, edtech (including tools for ELL students and AI-enabled instruction), and supports for students with learning differences — prioritizing ventures led by people from the communities they serve and solutions that personalize learning and strengthen foundational literacy and math.

Value Add

Venture philanthropy model: provides grant funding plus year-long expert support and convening opportunities rather than purely financial returns.
Open, competitive funding process and innovation challenges (e.g., Ignite challenges, EdTech Entrepreneurs Lab) that source ideas from large applicant pools (1,100–1,600+ applicants).
Explicit, measurable focus on diversifying grantees and internal leadership (e.g., grew grantees led by people of color from 18% to 70%; half of dollars invested to Black and Latino-led ventures between 2015–2021).
Selection informed by practitioner and community input — advisory boards made up of researchers, educators, and parents and direct engagement with teachers and students in challenge design and review.
Ecosystem-building through recurring convenings (NewSchools Summit, annual gatherings, pitch labs) that connect entrepreneurs, funders, and system leaders.