Learning Solutions

Existing schools need help developing student-centered classrooms that offer learners personalized support. We invest in learning solutions, including tools, content, and models that accelerate reading and math growth. These solutions draw on research, instructional expertise, and new technologies, including AI, to strengthen learning for all students.

2025 Investments

This year’s investments included new literacy, math, and AI readiness solutions; more than half of all solutions leverage AI and 25% were from first-time applicants. We also launched the new GenAI math Tutoring Program.

$7.7M

invested

28

funded ventures

Impact Highlights

Ventures with rigorous evidence reported a 12% increase in K-8 reading and math achievement.

2.2M students reached by ventures

What We’re Learning

Engagement drives learning

When learning is designed for efficiency rather than engagement, many students struggle to stay motivated. Ventures in our portfolio are exploring approaches that boost engagement and persistence through multimodal interaction, AI-facilitated peer learning, and learning models that give students meaningful roles in teaching and supporting one another.
Early evidence is a prerequisite for adoption

Investing early in high-quality research and evidence is crucial. In a crowded and cautious education market, credible, early impact data is a powerful signal for districts, funders, and partners. Even small, well-timed investments to generate this evidence can significantly accelerate growth, helping innovative solutions reach and improve outcomes for more students at scale.
HQIM and policy alignment accelerate venture growth

The strongest learning solutions build on districts’ adoption of high-quality instructional materials, creating clearer pathways for impact and scale. At the same time, growing policy alignment, particularly now in math, is helping establish consistent conditions for adoption and growth.
Strategic partnerships are driving reach and impact

Ventures are partnering with established players to scale in a complex K–12 market. For example, AI-powered math solutions are collaborating with curriculum providers to strengthen feedback, coherence, and personalization, bringing district instructional visions to life.

Venture Spotlights

Helping Every Child Learn To Read in Their Own Voice

Learning to read is a critical milestone. When it doesn’t happen early, the effects can last for years. Yet many literacy tools fail to reflect how children actually speak, learn, and make meaning, especially those whose language and/or background differ from the norm. Magpie Literacy was created to address that gap.

Founded by Rebecca Kockler, a former middle school teacher and state education leader, Magpie brings together research-based instruction with emerging technology to support early readers. The team draws on decades of classroom, system, and assessment experience to design tools that help students move from decoding words to reading with fluency and understanding.

Magpie Literacy Foundations provides K–2 students with assessments, instruction, and learning games that support core reading skills. Using automatic speech recognition, Magpie is building a platform that listens as students read aloud and delivers personalized, real-time feedback while generating actionable data for teachers. Unlike many tools, Magpie’s platform is designed to account for linguistic diversity rather than penalize it.

Magpie’s solutions are already in use with over 15,000 students in K-2 classrooms. Early pilots show meaningful literacy gains, particularly for students furthest from opportunity. Magpie is exploring plans to make its core voice-recognition technology open-source so others can build on it and to help reduce duplication across the field.

Turning Math Conversation into Powerful Math Learning

In many math classrooms, students who grasp the material move ahead, while others quietly fall behind. PeerTeach was created to flip that dynamic by turning students into peer tutors and making math conversations central to learning.

Founded by Dr. Soren Rosier and Kreg Moccia, PeerTeach trains students through short, gamified sessions to become effective peer math tutors. Using AI to guide student pairings, the platform helps students practice explaining concepts, asking questions, and working through problems together. Teaching becomes part of learning for everyone involved.

As PeerTeach expanded into Title I schools, the team recognized unfinished learning was common. Instead of limiting participation, they adapted the model so students could engage at different starting points. The platform checks what each student understands and shifts to earlier concepts when needed. This allows students to tutor and learn at the same time, even when they are below grade level.

Across more than 50,000 peer coaching sessions, students showed nearly three times growth in topic mastery after a single session. PeerTeach now supports students in 25 different languages. Offered at a fraction of the cost of traditional tutoring, PeerTeach shows how peer relationships, supported by technology, can drive meaningful learning gains.