Lowercase Capital is a private equity and venture capital firm specializing in investments in seed/startups, mature, and acquisition of later-stage companies. The firm typically invests in wireless, media, commerce, infrastructure, energy, and transportation sectors. It also advises businesses and funds.  Lowercase Capital was founded in 2010 and is based in New York, New York.

Lowercase Capital

At Eniac Ventures we lead seed rounds in bold founders who use code to create transformational companies. Armed with over 80 years of combined experience building our own companies, we are your active partners and consider ourselves a member of your founding team. Providing capital is just the first step, when we lead your seed round we provide the industry’s most comprehensive support through our Eniac Platform and hands on approach. From the beginning one of the keys to Eniac’s success has been taking a holistic approach to supporting our portfolio. With Eniac you get four partners for the price of one, and each partner uses their unique experience to open doors and advise our investments. The result has led to companies that consistently bring quality product to market, find follow on investment and have a measurable impact across industries. With each fund our approach has evolved and expanded to address the growing needs of our portfolio companies. We want our founders to focus on their product so we created the Eniac Platform. Term sheets are just the first step, working with Eniac companies enjoy the following free support: - Talent recruiter to find the best employees, especially in engineering   - Public relations and marketing specialist on staff to help your product reach the audiences that matter from launch through growth - Operations resources to organize your staff and install best practices - Business development and networking opportunities with thousands of the top companies, investors, and brands - Connections to other founders in Eniac’s portfolio to explore synergies and opportunities Fundraising support including pitch deck guidance, follow on investor strategy, and syndicate building

Eniac Ventures

Golden Ventures is a leading seed-stage venture capital fund, based in Toronto and investing across North America. We're here to support founders who are building the future. It is our job to take big risks on the world's most talented, driven and resilient founding teams who want to change the world.

Golden Ventures

Notable Capital is named for the founders we invest with, the ideas they pursue, the causes they champion, and the remarkable companies they build. Notable is a U.S.-based venture capital firm focused on early-to-growth stage companies in cloud infrastructure and business and consumer applications across the U.S., Israel, Europe, Latin America, and select go-global opportunities. Notable portfolio companies include Affirm, Airbnb, Block, Brightwheel, Drata, Handshake, HashiCorp, Ibotta, Orca Security, Quince, Slack, Slice, StockX, Stori, Vercel, Zendesk, and more.

Notable Capital

RRE Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage technology companies across various sectors. RRE Ventures invests in early-stage companies, often participating in Seed and Series A funding rounds. They look for innovative technology solutions and scalable business models.

RRE Ventures

ICONIQ Capital is a privately-held investment firm that serves some influential families and organizations. The firm is a trusted advisor and thought partner, facilitating meaningful strategic relationships across investment opportunities, family governance, and global impact. ICONIQ provides financial advisory and family office services, and manages direct investments across asset classes, with a specific focus on technology growth equity, venture capital, middle-market buyout, and real estate.

ICONIQ Capital

In 1995, Mark and long-time friend Todd Wagner came up with an internet based solution to not being able to listen to Hoosiers Basketball games out in Texas. That solution was Broadcast.com - streaming audio over the internet. In just four short years, Broadcast.com (then Audionet) would be sold to Yahoo for $5.6 billion dollars.

Mark Cuban Companies

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative supports strong, independent leaders from academia and government, as well as the technology and non-profit sectors, to do the work possible. They engage directly in the communities they serve because no one understands their society’s challenges like those who live with them every day. These partners help them identify problems and opportunities, learn fast, and iterate toward their goals for the next century.

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

The Heron is known for its patience, standing still until the exact right moment to strike.   Heron Rock is a physical place, a rock outside our office where a Heron often chooses to rest, when not hunting.

Heron Rock Fund

Bessemer Venture Partners helps entrepreneurs lay strong foundations to build and forge long-standing companies. Their portfolio includes pinterest, shopify, twilio, yelp, linkedin, pagerduty, docusign, wix, fiverr, and toast, and has $19 billion of assets under management.

Bessemer Venture Partners

Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, and his wife, Pam, established Omidyar Network based on the belief that every person has the potential to make a difference. Since 2004, they have worked with their partners to create opportunities for people to tap that potential, enabling them to improve their lives and make powerful contributions to their communities.  They support, scale, and champion the work of their partners in order to maximize social impact. As a philanthropic investment firm, they make both investments and grants, identifying like-minded organizations that they support, help scale, and collaborate with to help realize their full potential. Their efforts are organized around two investment initiatives Access to Capital, and Media, Markets and Transparency.

Omidyar Network

Addition is a venture capital firm that invests in early and growth-stage tech companies. The firm was founded in 2020 by Lee Fixel with a mission to support visionary entrepreneurs on their journey to build impactful and enduring businesses.

Addition

Emerson Collective is an organization dedicated to removing barriers to opportunity so people can live to their full potential. Established and led by Laurene Powell Jobs, we center our work on education, immigration reform, the environment, and other social justice initiatives. We use a wide range of tools and strategies—partnering with entrepreneurs and experts, parents and policymakers, advocates and administrators—to develop and execute innovative solutions that will spur change and promote equality.

Emerson Collective

Our mission is to coach and invest in entrepreneurial leaders building world-class, purpose-driven organizations. Led by Jeff Weiner and Brian Rumao. Sector focus areas include B2B / enterprise software, financial tech, consumer apps, health and wellness and education. We are interested in productivity software and virtual work, direct-to-consumer / e-commerce, SaaS, and data and AI/ML-powered platforms.

Next Play Ventures

9Yards Capital provides entrepreneurs with long-term, strategic capital and have a deep understanding of how governments and regulators operate. They take a focused approach to the industries they invest in and have a proven track record in financial services and logistics investing.

9Yards Capital

With a history in angel investing and now operating under Trybe Ventures, we invest in early-stage companies with a focus in healthcare, media, tech, and sports adjacent properties. The ''Y'' in Trybe highlights to the founder that this starts with them and our aim is to help catapult their company closer to achieving its goals.

Trybe Ventures

Brightwheel

Brightwheel is a software platform for preschools, childcare providers, camps, and afterschool programs that helps teachers to manage their day and communicate with parents, gives parents deeper insight into what their children are learning, and automates the process of managing operations for administrators.

<div>Founded by Dave Vasen in 2014, Brightwheel is the developer of a software-as-a-service platform for preschools, childcare providers, camps, and afterschool programs that supports administrators with managing their operations, teachers with managing their classrooms, and parents with teacher communication. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company built solutions to help early learning institutions operate under pandemic restrictions such as health and safety checks, digital communications, and touchless sign-in systems. In 2016, Brightwheel acquired MyChild, a parent engagement tool, to add parent communication and student assessment features to its platform.</div>

Remote learning is driving an education technology revolution.

EdTech: K-12

Daycare Software Market Growing Massively by HiMama, Brightwheel, LifeCubby, Procare, SmartCare – Suffolk Voice

<div>
 
 Founded by Dave Vasen in 2014, Brightwheel is the developer of a software-as-a-service platform for preschools, childcare providers, camps, and afterschool programs that supports administrators with managing their operations, teachers with managing their classrooms, and parents with teacher communication. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company built solutions to help early learning institutions operate under pandemic restrictions such as health and safety checks, digital communications, and touchless sign-in systems. In 2016, Brightwheel acquired MyChild, a parent engagement tool, to add parent communication and student assessment features to its platform.
 
 
 In February 2021, Brightwheel raised USD 55 million in Series C funding for product development and to expand its offices in San Francisco, Austin, and Denver, and its remote team.
 
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Founded in 2016, BookNook is an online literacy platform designed for learners in grades 1-5. Partnering with school districts and non-profit organizations, the company focuses on human-to-human learning and works with children one-on-one or in small groups, enabling it to gather rich, observational data. As of June 2021, the company partnered with hundreds of schools, school districts, and non-profits across 35 states.BookNook differs from other digital literacy tools by not requiring students to take formative assessments to check for their understanding. Rather, the platform lets teachers record qualitative data on oral fluency, such as whether a student pauses at punctuation marks as they read aloud, or reads in set phrases. Students can also record self-reflections on the platform.In June 2021, the company partnered with MIND Research Institute, a neuroscience and education social impact organization and creator of the PreK-8 visual instructional program ST Math, to deliver a High Dosage Tutoring program (HDT) for math to K-8 students to address unfinished learning. BookNook tutors will deliver tutoring sessions using the ST Math program over BookNook’s synchronous learning platform. The company launched a new teacher application portal at booknooktutor.com in October 2021, giving experienced teachers the opportunity to apply to become BookNook virtual tutors on its platform. BookNook intends to engage 10,000 virtual teachers to support 80,000 students by the end of the 2021-2022 school year.

BookNook

Story2 uses its proprietary Moments Method writing system, its StoryBuilder software, and live online group coaching to help high school students and professionals improve their writing, speaking, storytelling, and collaboration skills.The company aims to help different segments with their specific needs: students with college admission and scholarship essays, professionals preparing for interviews and creating cover letters, and business teams to improve sales, recruiting and company messaging through effective storytelling.Since 2013, Story2 has worked with more than 200,000 individuals in 21 countries with college admission essays, interview preparation, and pitching ideas. The company is expanding into China and India in 2020 and plans to focus on helping science and technology students improve their communication and leadership skills.

Story2

<div>
 
 Vooks offers a subscription-based, ad-free curated library of children's books converted to video with narration and some slow-paced animation, allowing children to read along while watching. Aimed at young children aged 6 months to 8 years, Vooks promotes reading aloud to develop fluency and comprehension. The company was founded by siblings Marshall Bex and Shannon Bex, and Russell Hirtzel, and is reportedly the first-ever streaming service for books with illustrations, read-along text and animations.
 
 
 In February 2020, Vooks raised USD 12 million in Series A funding; however, the investors and purpose of the funding were not disclosed. In November 2020, the company raised USD 21.9 million in equity investments from more than 30 investors.
 
 
 In November 2020, Vooks partnered with United Way of Metropolitan Dallas (UWMD), a community-based, nonprofit social change organization, and Atmos Energy, a natural gas distributor, to provide around 78,000 one-year Vooks subscriptions for children aged 3 to 6 and early education teachers in the Greater Dallas area. The program is funded by a USD 1 million contribution from Atmos Energy, and contributes to UWMD’s Aspire United 2030 education goal of increasing the number of North Texas students reading at grade level by third grade by 50%. Similarly, in March 2021, the company partnered with Reach Out and Read Of Greater New York (ROR GNY), a nonprofit organization of healthcare providers who promote early literacy. The partnership aims to provide more than 75,000 preschool children with one-year Vooks subscriptions starting in March 2021.
 
 
 In July 2021, it was reported that Vooks is offering its service to authors and producers as a way of quickly testing ideas with audiences through simple animated shorts. Thereby, Vooks expands its library of original content while authors and producers get real-time performance data.
 
</div>

Vooks

Xeropan offers an AI-powered, game-based approach to learning English through 14 of the most widely-spoken languages. As of October 2020, the app had more than one million players.

Xeropan

<div>
 
 GoGuardian is a provider of student security software solutions to help educators identify learning patterns, protect students from harmful and distracting content, and support students at risk of self-harm and suicide. As of August 2021, the company had partnered with more than 10,000 schools in the US, covering more than 22 million students.  
 
 
 In November 2020, GoGuardian announced a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/1863">
 merger with Pear Deck
 </a>
 to deepen the support provided to students and teachers and improve their in-class experience. Founded in 2014, Pear Deck is a student engagement platform that allows teachers to create, edit, and launch multimedia content and formative assessments on students' devices to increase student engagement. At the time of the merger, Pear Deck was used by 8 million educators and students in more than 17,000 schools worldwide. Pear Deck co-founder and Chief Educator, Michal Eynon-Lynch, will join the GoGuardian Board of Directors. In May 2022, the company acquired 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10683">
 TutorMe,
 </a>
 Zovio’s tutoring services business, for USD 55 million in cash to strengthen its product offering. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In August 2021, GoGuardian secured a USD 200 million investment from Tiger Global Management. The funds will be allocated for product innovation, talent acquisition, and business development. 
 
 
 
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GoGuardian

Businesses providing education delivery solutions such as learning management systems (LMS), and tech solutions for data analytics, administration, and other services to educational institutions.

Businesses delivering curriculum-based learning, particularly relating to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education to educational institutions and individual students.

Mostly for-profit corporations running state-funded, tuition-free schools as an alternative to traditional public schools.

Businesses providing extra-curricular education relating to the arts, hobbies, and life skills, and entities providing college and career guidance.

Businesses delivering English language arts (ELA) education, and language learning and literacy support to educational institutions and individual students.

Platforms providing students with after-school tutoring support on an individual or group basis.

Businesses delivering early childhood education, special education, and social-emotional learning (SEL) programs to educational institutions and individual students.

Entities providing professional development resources and tools for teachers, and those providing testing and assessment solutions to educational institutions and educators.

Platforms providing student-parent-teacher-school communication and networking solutions, and those providing search, reference, and marketplace solutions.

Companies that use GenAI as a core part of their product offering for EdTech: K12 solutions

Uses GenAI to provide interactive AI tutors, create personallized learning pathways,  and gamified learning solutions

Uses AI/ML to create personalized learning plans, adaptive learning platforms, and intelligent tutoring systems

Adaptive learning platforms, personalized learning plans, and AI-powered analytics provide insight into student performance

Learning platforms that promote an inclusive and equitable educational culture for underserved communities

Brightwheel

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