Three startup veterans, Geoff Ralston, Tim Brady, and Alan Louie are the brains (or wallets) behind Imagine K12. This new startup is modeled closely after Y Combinator, except that they will focus on education. Their prime directive is “to effect positive change in the K-12 education space.”
Rather than speculate, share opinions, or dump money into the school system, Imagine K12 will connect with early stage startups and give them some breathing room to grow. In addition to providing $15-$20,000 in funding, each startup will get valuable mentoring from startup experts.
Ralston sold his music startup LaLa to Apple in 2009, Tim Brady previously served as CEO of education startup QuestBridge, and Alan Louie helped create Google.org. In exchange for the cash and mentoring, each startup will give up around %6 of its equity. This model has worked very well for Y Combinator, who are “big supporters” of the project. In an email to TechCrunch, Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham said:
We’re big supporters of this project and have been talking to them about it since the beginning. We’ve told them everything about how YC works and brought them in to observe what we do. After they launch we’re going to publish a blog post encouraging startups working on software for schools to apply to them instead of us.
I’m pretty excited to be able to do anything to help schools, even indirectly. After I watched Waiting for Superman I felt a bit bummed that I was spending all my time working on startups instead of trying to help schools. So I was delighted when an opportunity to help schools by working on startups dropped into my lap.
Another benefit for education startups working with Imagine K12 will be their commitment to building close liaisons with charter schools, charter school organizations, and forwarding-thinking public schools. These relationships will provide an easy way for Imagine K12 startups to test their products, as well as help them avoid mistakes. If you have an education startup, you can apply at imaginek12.com.
via TechCrunch