In the past decade, venture capital (VC) firms have invested over $80 billion into education startups, with the global EdTech market spiking to $20.8 billion in 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although investment volume has cooled down from pandemic highs, VCs continue to invest billions every year in education and EdTech startups. In such a competitive fundraising environment, it’s critical for EdTech founders to reach out to the right investors to successfully raise funding.
As part of our going series of free fundraising resources and investor lists for founders, this article will explore the top 10 active VC firms and investors focused on education and EdTech startups, with details on each firm’s investment focus, history and fund size.
1. Rethink Capital Partners
Rethink Capital Partners is an umbrella platform that facilitates the development of a suite of impact investment vehicles, which focus on financial and social returns including gender equity, education, health, environmental sustainability, economic empowerment, and community development. Rethink Capital Partners is headquartered in White Plains,New York.
- Founded: 2012
- Fund Size: $15.7M
- Website: rethink.vc
2. Owl Ventures
Owl Ventures was founded by Andrew Birt and Julian Righetti to help new device manufacturers leverage their experience across product development, commercialisation, manufacturing, distribution and business development. They work on a project basis or partner with hardware startups if they believe there is a good fit and it makes sense toco-found, or co-invest.
- Founded: 2014
- Fund Size: $9M.
- Website: owlventures.com
3. Learn Capital
LearnCapital is a venture capital firm focused exclusively on funding entrepreneurs with a vision for better and smarter learning. They believe that the future is shaped by the way we teach and learn in the present, and that we’re in the middle of one of the great revolutions in the history of education. New technology platforms, applications, andservices are not only amplifying and augmenting classroom learning, but creating a world in which any Internet-enabled device can become a classroom on demand.
- Founded: 2008
- Fund Size: $106M
- Website: learncapital.com
4. Runa Capital
Runa Capital is a technology-focused venture capital firm managing two funds – Runa I was launched with $135M in 2010 and has made 33 investments, Runa II of $135M was launched in 2014 and has made 30 investmerns and Runa III was started in 2019 and is in active investment stage right now. The fund was established to seek early stage opportunities in the rapidly growing tech sector, with the specific focus on cloud business applications, complex software (middleware, machine intelligence, etc), fintech, edutech and digital healthcare. Runa brings a team with extensive operational experience and is focused on finding growth businesses that generate revenues, supporting them in the global marketplace and turning them into international champions. Founded by Serg Bell, Ilya Zubarev (founders of Parallels and Acronis) and Dmitry Chikhachev (Ericsson, Ritzio, Uvenco) Runa Capital is run by a team of successful entrepreneurs, most of whom have worked together for over 15 years. It is a united team with broad geographical and cross-industry experience, as well as an extensive professional network. Runa Capital investment team members possess an excellent track record in tech investments.
- Founded: 2010
- Fund Size: $250K
- Website: runacap.com
5. Reach Capital
Reach supports entrepreneurs that develops technology solutions for challenges across early childhood, K-12, higher education, and workforce reskilling and upskilling. They invest in early-stage tech tools, applications, content, and services to improve educational opportunities for all learners. The Fund also acts as a catalyst, inspiring and enabling traditional and non-traditional investors to provide capital to the fast-growing ed-tech market.
- Founded: 2015
- Fund Size: $300M
- Website: reachcapital.com
6. Educapital
Educapital are entrepreneurs in venture capital. Educapital combine strong financial and entrepreneurship backgrounds. Educapital invest in innovative European companies with the highest potential to scale and become European and global leaders. Educapital offer their portfolio companies access to a large edtech community.
- Founded: 2017
- Fund Size: €145M
- Website: educapitalvc.com
7. Bonsal Capital
Bonsal Capital was founded in 1999 on the belief that seed-stage funding is critical to a thriving entrepreneurship ecosystem, and that finding, mentoring, and supporting the right founders is paramount to ecosystem success. Our founder focus today is a more representative, more inclusive set of entrepreneurs. Over time, they have validated tens of thousands of prospective investments and have garnered a reputation as pioneers in education and workforce technology investing. Working with us, you get more than an investment — you get a partner, with deep knowledge of and networks in the industry, who will help guide your company through its growth trajectory
- Founded: 1999
- Fund Size: $3M
- Website: bonsalcapital.com
8. Emerge Education
Emerge Education is a European seed fund investing in founders solving the $8.5tn skills gap. Emerge provides founders with unrivalled education sector insights, as they’re the only fund backed by the world’s foremost education entrepreneurs
- Founded: 2013
- Fund Size: $100K
- Website: emerge.education
9. Floodgate
Technology is bringing abundance to the world. But, only a handful of people start the iconic companies with the biggest impact. Floodgate calls these special founders the Prime Movers. Prime Movers — through their vision, talent, and will — create massive outcomes from nothing. Equally important, they are brave enough to defy conventional wisdom. Walls and barriers and “rules” accepted by others don’t stop them. Floodgate backs Prime Movers before others believe. Floodgate has been built from the ground-up to partner with Prime Movers when their legendary journeys begin. We’ve seen that breakthroughs seem crazy at first. They are not afraid of startups that re-write the rules (and even the law), if that’s what it takes to create enduring change.
- Founded: 2006
- Fund Size: $401.3M
- Website: floodgate.com
10. Precursor Ventures
- Founded: 2015
- Fund Size: $46.2M
- Website: precursorvc.com
Raising funding for your startup? Create the perfect education pitch deck:
Are you interested in learning how to write and design a winning pitch deck for your startup? You may be interested in our popular EdTech Pitch Deck template — designed by experts who have helped startups close millions in funding from top investors. Here are some other resources for founders in the education space:
- Guide to creating an EdTech pitch deck
- Examples of successful education pitch decks like Labster and Rebel Girls
- Comprehensive recipe for the perfect pitch deck
