Shauntel Garvey is a former chemical engineer from Procter & Gamble who co-founded Reach Capital by spinning out the edtech investing practice from NewSchools Venture Fund, backing category-defining products like ClassDojo and Newsela from their earliest stages. She explicitly looks for founders with lived experience in the domains they're building for and has championed redefining edtech as learning, health, and work around the concept of elevating human potential across a lifelong continuum.

• A focus on the intersection of education and artificial intelligence, particularly highlighting how new tools can help users learn to build by explaining their reasoning or how AI can provide constructive feedback to teachers in the classroom.
• Interest in closing the skills gap and solving labor shortages, specifically regarding the high demand for allied healthcare workers or the difficulty entry-level candidates face when trying to gain experience for their first roles.
• Prioritizing solutions that address the student mental health crisis, such as platforms that help fill the gap created by the overwhelming ratio of students to available school counselors.
• Enthusiasm for the future of flexible work and the gig economy, evidenced by support for platforms that provide benefits to gig workers or connect international creatives, such as designers in Africa, with remote employment opportunities.
• Support for underrepresented founders and impact investing, frequently mentioning initiatives intended to elevate leaders who struggle with traditional fundraising and sharing data that proves impact-focused exits can meet or exceed financial expectations.