With over a dozen stories already published in 2026 and many more on the way, our publishing pipeline is humming this year. Don’t want to wait for this monthly roundup? Sign up below to receive email alerts as soon as they’re hot off the press.

April showers bring May flowers, and this month, we gathered rooms full of founders and funders planting the seeds for the future of learning, health, and work.

This week, our Annual General Meeting brought together our supporters at the SFMOMA. Sprinkled across the usual fund updates were AI demos led by founders at Sira, Snorkl, and Songscription, a heartwarming a cappella performance by The Mendicants at Stanford, and remarks from Bob Fisher, Chairman Emeritus of the museum and Chairman of Gap, on the importance of the arts in technology and the rejuvenation of San Francisco. Whoever said such events have to be dry!

The month also brought us to San Diego for the ASU GSV Summit, the edtech industry’s annual extravaganza. In between the happy hours and parties, our team facilitated lively conversations around: 

Career-Connected Learning: AI is rewriting what entry-level work looks like, faster than most schools and curricula can keep up. Our Head of Platform Tony Wan moderated a discussion with CEOs from Simplilearn, Instructure, Edmentum, and Stride (left to right, in photo below) who are building alternatives to the status quo, from competency-based learning to workforce credentials and skills-first hiring.

Selling Into Districts — The Insider Perspective: We co-hosted with Equal Opportunity Ventures a panel of superintendents and cabinet-level officials for a candid conversation on what it really takes to win a district's trust and dollars. Reach Partner James Kim moderated alongside Michelle Rhee, EO Venture Partner and former Chancellor of DC Public Schools.

AI can write prose, generate code, and simulate a tutor. But can it help develop taste? In an interview with aiEDU founder Alex Kotran, Reach Head of Platform Tony Wan argues that the ability to discern good from bad — developed through practice, struggle and feedback — may be the most important and defensible human skill. They dig into what that means for schools, students, and the edtech startups trying to build tools that actually stick.

It’s not an easy time to find entry-level work. But while graduates can’t control the macroeconomic climate, AI tools have created a “genuine golden age for builders,” says Jared Silver, Head of Engineering at Brilliant. Learn about his unconventional path to Brilliant, what opens doors for engineers today, and why he thinks early-career builders have more leverage than they realize.

Pathfinder

Families now have more choice in how and where their children learn, at homeschools, microschools, and other school models. Funding is following along; there are now nearly two dozen distinct ESA programs operating across 18 states, accounting for over $13 billion.

Yet while policy has advanced, the infrastructure has not. Accessing these funds can be confusing and stressful. Reimbursements can take months, if they happen at all. Families leave money on the table, not because they don’t want to invest in their children, but because the system is too hard to navigate.

Pathfinder is building the modern financial infrastructure that works for families and, in doing so, unlocks better alternative educational outcomes at scale. We’re thrilled to co-lead its Seed round and partner with Amaan, Sid, and the team as they build toward that future. Read more about why we invested. (Oh, and they’re hiring an AI Engineer to join their top-talent team!)

Many entrepreneurs building for health systems have never run one. Rick Majzun has — for 30 years. As President and COO of Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, he brings an operator’s instinct for what actually works inside complex healthcare systems. We’re thrilled to welcome Rick as a Reach healthcare advisor, helping founders working to expand access to care, particularly in pediatrics and women’s health.

We weren’t done with April’s action-packed month:

AI Researcher After Hours: We hosted a happy hour for AI researchers with Vetto, a Reach portfolio company helping frontier AI labs improve model performance. Over two dozen researchers and executives from Apple, OpenAI, Meta, Stanford and other leading institutions gathered to share their work pushing the boundaries of model performance, evaluation, and training infrastructure.

VC Platform Summit: Reach's Platform team joined 500+ venture operators in San Diego for three days of candid conversations on talent, AI infrastructure, and the hard-won lessons shaping how the best firms support founders today. Growth leads, talent partners, ops leaders, and more shared what separates firms that are truly AI-enabled from those just using the tools, and how the best platform teams are building the data infrastructure, safety, and firm culture that compound over time. 

Where we're headed next:

🗓️ The 2026 Reach Conference Calendar is the best way to see all the major industry events across learning, health, and work (filterable by sector, date, and location). If you’re hosting a conference or know of one we missed, reply to the newsletter.

Creating a world of better problem solvers through interactive STEM learning.

Revolutionizing access to pediatric developmental care: at home, in-network, no waitlists. 

Driving down the cost of hospital care for everyone.

Building financial and marketplace infrastructure that makes alternative education accessible to families.

Unlocking new possibilities for learners, employers, and institutions to create meaningful, outcome-driven experiences together.

Reimagining care, for families and for caregivers.

Delivering affordable, online, instructor-led, and AI-supported programs that help learners enter high-demand healthcare careers.