Lake Tahoe at dawn

Tahoe Education Partners

Investing in the future of learning.

We partner with founder-led education software and services companies across Early Childhood, K12, Higher Education, and Workforce Learning — combining deep market experience with long-term, stewardship-driven capital.

Experience across leading education and education technology platforms

Scholastic
Illuminate Education
LearnPlatform
KEV Group
ParentSquare
Study Island
Education Advanced
FamilyID
USATestPrep
ArbiterSports

Why education

Learning shapes human potential.

Education is the most consequential industry we know. It compounds across generations, shapes economies, and quietly determines the shape of a life.

We believe great founders — supported by patient, education-native partners — can build the institutions and tools that prepare students for a world that looks nothing like the one their schools were designed for.

Curiosity should be cultivated, not suppressed. Teachers should be empowered, not replaced. And the businesses that serve them deserve investors who understand how education actually works.

Where we invest

Markets we know deeply.

Full sector map →

Early Childhood

01

Childcare operations, enrollment, curriculum, and parent communication platforms serving the earliest years of learning.

Childcare softwareEnrollmentCurriculumParent comms

K12

02

Software and services across student engagement, SIS, assessment, payments, safety, and teacher workflow.

EngagementSIS & AssessmentSchool paymentsTeacher workflow

Higher Education

03

Student lifecycle, enrollment optimization, retention, and continuing education across two- and four-year institutions.

LifecycleEnrollmentRetentionContinuing ed

Workforce & Continuing Education

04

Professional development, certification, upskilling, and corporate learning serving a workforce in transition.

PDCertificationUpskillingCorporate learning

Selected education experience

Companies we've helped build.

Selected investments and operating experience across our team, including transactions led during Dan Herr's tenure at Serent Capital.

01

Illuminate Education

Assessment & data platform serving 17M+ students

02

ParentSquare

Unified school–family communication

03

Study Island

K12 standards-based learning

04

KEV Group

School payments and activity management

05

USATestPrep

Standards-aligned assessment for K12

06

Education Advanced

Teacher evaluation & curriculum workflow

For founders

Built for founder-led education businesses.

Long-term orientation

We invest with patience appropriate to education cycles — not artificial fund timelines.

Education-specific experience

We've sat across the table from districts, provosts, and IT departments. We speak the language.

Operational support

Hands-on help with go-to-market, product, finance, and hiring when you want it — never imposed.

Thoughtful transitions

Liquidity that preserves mission, team, and the parts of the culture that made the business work.

Partner

Dan Herr

Former Serent Capital. Led education investments including Illuminate Education, KEV Group, and Education Advanced. Basketball coach, substitute teacher, and parent of school-aged children.

Partner

Chris Kinner

Commercial strategy and M&A operator. Harvard-trained in cognitive neuroscience with a focus on how humans actually learn. Long-term strategic thinker.

If you're building something enduring in education, we'd like to hear about it.

No pitch deck required. A conversation is enough.