Dear readers,

As we close out 2025, we’d love to start this issue with a holiday cheer to you, our wonderfully curious crew who took this newsletter from a handful to over 1,000 subscribers in its very first year.

It’s been a year of milestones for Reach: a new office in New York, a fresh site and logo, some new unofficial job titles (courtesy of Granola), and a decade since our first fund.

More than 10 years ago, our founders gathered in a tiny, shoebox office and set out to prove what many said was impossible: that investing in education can deliver deep impact and world-class returns.

Four funds — two fully returned — and millions of lives changed later, we’re incredibly grateful for all the founders we’ve been blessed to work with. And for an incredible journey that’s taken us to health, work, and many other essential moments in life. This year, as our portfolio has grown, so has our companies’ impact: Reaching new communities from student‑athletes and musicians to grocery shoppers, radiologists, life science researchers, and physicians.

Last week, we celebrated the occasion with our earliest friends, founders, and believers. We also debuted this special video reflecting on how far we’ve come and paving the path for what’s ahead. 

Amid chronic labor shortages, growing costs, and mounting pressures on our healthcare system, how can technology improve access to quality care at scale?

Our first-ever Healthcare Impact Report examines that question through the lens of our portfolio companies and the people they serve.

In hospitals and homes, families and schools, workers and clinicians, we’ve seen changes previously unimagined: Students with no medical background upskilled and scrubbing into surgeries. Hospitals filling vacant roles with newly trained, bilingual professionals. A boy who couldn’t sit still to write now eager and ready for school. Families once buried under medical bills able to access financial relief. Cancer research accelerating at an unprecedented rate.

Alongside these stories, this report weaves together our own health impact journey and the principles that guide our impact measurements: quality, access, and scale. It also details critical market trends we’re following, innovative solutions our companies are building, and promising opportunities for the next generation of healthcare entrepreneurs.

Today, only 10% of the Fortune 500 are led by women. Avery Yang, our summer intern and a high school student, distills leadership lessons from five leading female entrepreneurs who paved their own path to success, including our very own General Partner Jennifer Carolan.

We’re excited to lead the seed round for CurvePoint, developers of Wi-AI, a technology that uses WiFi signals to detect concealed weapons in non-intrusive ways (without the use of cameras or metal detectors). Chartiers Valley School District recently became the first district to deploy this privacy-first surveillance across its campus. Since then, the platform has expanded to 40+ school districts across Pennsylvania.

The agentic AI platform built for higher education is out of stealth with a $1.4M Pre-Seed round from a16z speedrun, Reach, and JFFVentures to reinvent higher ed business intelligence. Co-founded by Ryan Lau (a former Reach intern who helped lead our early GenAI research) and Alan Chan, Straia unifies siloed institutional data and delivers real-time, actionable insights, so higher ed leaders can support every student and intervene earlier when it matters most.

Curl up by the fire with cocoa in hand and some thought‑provoking reads. ICYMI, here are six of the most popular articles from our investment team in 2025 to spark ideas for the year ahead.

By James Kim

The traits that feel helpful in AI assistants can be counterproductive, or even harmful, for high-stakes interactions like tutoring and therapy. James Kim explores why these “gray area” domains will need more than clever prompting or data labeling, and how companies building true data flywheels will unlock the next frontier of AI applications.

By Jennifer Carolan

What does AI mean for one of our most highly educated, overworked, and underpaid workforce? As promising as this tech is, the human connection remains the most powerful lever for learning. As AI takes on rote, repetitive tasks, there’s an incredible opportunity to help teachers return to the heart of the craft: leading creative, human-centered learning.

By Enzo Cavalie

For too long, the needs of the deskless workforce have been overlooked by modern software. From voice-first copilots to real-time coaching and agentic sidekicks, there is a massive opportunity to build new tools for the millions of construction workers, warehouse staff, and others who altogether contribute $4 trillion to the U.S. economy.

By Caoimhe MacRunnels

Every day, our smartphones and watches generate billions of data points about our heart rate, sleep, stress, and wellbeing. But most of it never makes it to our doctors. Combining clinical and personal data is a trillion-dollar opportunity that can unlock much better insights and build a more connected, patient-led future of care.

By Steve Kupfer

Can traditional school districts become the backbone of a more dynamic learning ecosystem? As school choice programs and education savings accounts grow, there’s an incredible opportunity to chart a new path for public education, one that is more sustainable, equitable, and aligned with the demands of families.

By Jomayra Herrera

Our gut microbiome influences everything from our immune system to our mental health, yet it is one of the least understood and monitored parts of our wellbeing. Here’s our thesis on how smarter diagnostics, more precise clinical tools, and connected data platforms can bring gut health to the forefront of modern healthcare.

Jan. 12-15 | San Francisco, CA

Jan 13 | Reach HQ, San Francisco, CA

San Francisco, CA or New York, NY • Hybrid

Impact is at the heart of Reach. From the beginning, we’ve purposefully connected our portfolio founders with researchers, domain experts, and practitioners to facilitate efficacy studies and feedback that inform product development. To expand that work for the broader field, we’re starting a nonprofit called The Cobalt Collective. Our mission is to rethink how we give, focusing on high-impact, efficient ideas — making sure every dollar creates the biggest possible impact, much like the mighty little element it's named after. We’re looking for a founding executive director to work closely with us to build this organization from the ground up.

New York, NY • Remote

Creating paths for accessible, high-quality pediatric therapy at home and in the community.

Toronto, Canada • On-site

Making public-sector procurement and sales transparent, smooth, and intelligent, starting with education.

Culver City, CA or Lehi, UT • Hybrid

Rebuilding higher education for a new era: smarter, faster, and way more fun than lectures and debt.

Foster City, CA • Hybrid

Empowering the next billion software creators and developers.

San Francisco, CA • Hybrid

Building the AI-native operating system for higher education, starting with analytics powered by intelligent AI agents.

San Francisco, CA • In-person

Building AI models that automate transcription, arrangement, and leveling so anyone can learn any song on any instrument.