Who Profits From EdTech? An Intersectional Feminist Analysis of Venture Capital Investment in Education

• In Event: Theorizing From the Intersections: Understanding Education Policies and Practices Through Critical Feminist Theories

Abstract

Drawing on a lens of critical feminist theories of intersectionality (Bacchetta 2007; Crenshaw 1991; Davis 1981; Hill Collins 1990; Trinh 1989), this paper examines the gendered, racialized, and classed dynamics of venture capital funding in education by focusing on who funds educational technologies (edtech). It conceptualizes venture capital as an economic practice of wealthy individuals and firms investing in for-profit companies, principally technology companies, within the global capitalist economy. The paper understands venture capitalists that invest in edtech as educational actors with the financial and organizational capacity to significantly influence educational policy and practice in the US and around the world. The paper situates the analysis within an understanding of gendered and racial capitalism, where “the development, organization, and expansion of capitalist society pursued uneven racialized and gendered directions (Ferreira da Silva 2007; Melamed, 2015; author 2018; Robinson, 2000). Thus, in a system where “almost all of the national wealth” is concentrated “in the hands of a small number of white families,” the field of education must understand, in race, gender, and class terms, who the VCs and their investors, known as limited partners (LP), are who influencing education systems, and how their actions are perpetuating and/or disrupting racialized, gendered, and classed inequality. Venture capital is often called, a “White Boys Club” due to its culture of networking and exclusive, tightknit community made up of white, upper-middle and upper class males (O’Mara, 2019). As of 2018, data shows VC firms are 82% male, 60% white male, and 40% graduated from Stanford or Harvard, with 81% of firms not having a single Black investor (Kirby, 2018).
This paper draws on a mixed method approach to data analysis. It uses qualitative network analysis based on investment data from Crunchbase previously unanalyzed in educational research, open-ended interviews with VCs focused on edtech, and secondary analysis of existing data on gender, race, and education in the VC industry to examine who comprises the VC world in education. Understanding the demographics of VC in education is important as these individuals and firms make decisions regarding which entrepreneurs to invest in that often correspond with their own racial, gender, and class background. Moreover, they draw on (un)conscious assumptions regarding the education of “other people’s children” (Delpit 1995) and influence how the companies grow, develop their products, and seek a profit.. This is significant because these edtech products are purchased by public school districts and departments of education around the world using taxpayer money. This paper will contribute to the field of education’s understanding of the gender, race and class dynamics of venture capital investment in education and shed light on who is profiting from edtech in the context of increasing global investment in the industry.

Authors

• Kathryn Moeller, University of Cambridge

• Klint Kanopka, Stanford University