Investor Profile: GSV Ventures — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Founders researching GSV Ventures funding should know they are looking at one of the world's most specialised education investors. Co-founded in 2016 by Michael Cohn, the San Francisco and Chicago-based firm invests exclusively in companies transforming education and workforce skills — what it calls the “Pre-K to Gray” opportunity. With over $500M in assets under management across three funds, and a team spanning San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Paris, London and Noida in India, GSV Ventures backs learning startups on a genuinely global footprint.

Thesis and focus areas

The firm's thesis treats learning as a single lifecycle, from early childhood through higher education and on into corporate reskilling and the future of work. Sectors covered include K-12, higher education, enterprise learning, workforce skills and the AI tools reshaping all of them. GSV Ventures sits at the centre of the sector's conversation: managing partner Deborah Quazzo co-founded the ASU+GSV Summit, now in its 17th year, which draws more than 15,000 educators, founders, investors and policymakers to San Diego each April. The firm also runs an annual AI-first lens on new bets — partner Claire Zau leads its AI investment coverage — reflecting how deeply generative AI now runs through the 2025 and 2026 GSV 150 cohort of transformational edtech companies.

Cheque size and stage

GSV Ventures does not publish a standard cheque range. What its own disclosures confirm is scale: over $500M in assets under management across three funds, with institutional fund closes of $97M and $180M. The firm invests across stages, from seed through later rounds, and its portfolio includes companies from breakout Indian edtech PhysicsWallah to established platforms such as Coursera — evidence of a multi-stage, multi-geography approach rather than a single sweet spot.

Notable portfolio

The firm's disclosed investments include Coursera, Nearpod, Handshake, QuillBot, PhysicsWallah, ClassDojo, Quizizz and MasterClass. Board-level involvement runs deep: the team holds board seats at companies including Degreed, Ascend Learning, Ellucian and Turnitin, and board-observer roles at firms such as Photomath and Degreed — a sign of a hands-on, operator-style partnership model.

Team

Deborah Quazzo, managing partner and co-founder of the ASU+GSV Summit, has been named to Insider's list of top 100 seed investors three times. Adam Freed, managing partner, was chair and CEO of Teachers Pay Teachers (reaching over 75% of US, Canadian and Australian K-12 teachers) and previously COO of Etsy and a product leader at Google. Michael Cohn is co-founder and partner, and Abhishek Mishra, based in Noida, is the firm's first India-based partner — formerly chief strategy officer at PhysicsWallah.

How to apply for funding

GSV Ventures does not publish a formal pitch portal — its main website is currently being rebuilt. The clearest on-ramp for early-stage founders is the annual GSV Cup, presented by AWS and GSV Ventures and supported by Pearson: the 2026 edition drew more than 3,000 nominations from five continents, with 50 finalists presenting at Demo Day during the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego. Nominations and details are at asugsvsummit.com/gsv-cup. Beyond the Cup, the standard route is a warm introduction to a partner — and showing up at the Summit itself, where the entire edtech funding ecosystem gathers each spring.