How Shauntel Garvey went from being a chemical engineer to building one of the largest edtech-focused venture funds in the world

• Shauntel Garvey met her Reach Capital cofounders while working at the nonprofit fund NewSchools.
• The group spun out Reach Capital in 2015, and it’s now one of the biggest edtech venture funds.
• It helped Garvey focus her investing thesis around helping learners of all ages and backgrounds.

It was 2015 and Shauntel Garvey wanted to build something new. She had already been a chemical engineer at Procter & Gamble, and then decided to make the jump into education and investing.  

At the time, Garvey was a partner at NewSchools, a nonprofit philanthropy fund, and had been backing early stage education startups for around three years. But she and longtime collaborators Jennifer Carolan, Wayee Chu, and Esteban Sosnik saw an opportunity.