Michael Staton

Venture Partner

Michael Staton is Venture Partner at Alpha Partners in addition to Learn Capital, the leading sector-focused venture fund in Education, Learning, and Talent — where he served as a General Partner for a decade.  He helped lead investments into Coursera, Outschool, Andela, Photomath, Minerva, and Brilliant. He angel invested in several breakout companies, including MavenClinic, Ontra, Hipcamp, Yassir, and Clever; in addition to investments into private market data and intelligence platforms Allocate and CobaltLP. 

While transitioning into Venture, he was selected as a Kauffman Fellow – the industry leading learning network and training program for Venture Capital — where he was awarded the Jeff Timmons Award for outstanding leadership, which recognized his initiatives for a peer learning process and a Fellow governance & collaboration model. Since, he continues to serve on the Curriculum Advisory Board. 

 

Michael is currently the CEO and Founder of Colearn Club, a startup aiming to power parent involvement, engagement, and agency in education.  Prior to Learn Capital, Michael worked as a co-founder of DevBootcamp (sold to Kaplan) and an advisor to Quizlet (backed by USV) after being the founder and CEO of Uversity (sold to TargetX). Starting his career as a public school teacher, Michael served as a Venture Partner and Community Advisor to NewSchools Venture Fund’s Seed Fund, now Reach Capital.  He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, but loves travelling to New York, France, Spain, and the Nordics.