VC Spotlight: Brass Ring Ventures
The brass ring was more than a metaphor, it was a mantra. Miriam Altman-Reyes grew up hearing it from her late mother, and when she sold her edtech startup Kinvolved to PowerSchool, she turned those words into the name of a venture firm built to lift underrepresented founders into arenas where the odds have never been even. Brass Ring Ventures was launched in 2023 alongside Sumit Singh, a finance and operations architect who has guided companies through exits, M&A, and IPO prep. Together they designed a firm that doesn't just place bets. It embeds. It sharpens. It scales.
This is Seed-stage focus with teeth. The mandate: back mission-driven founders at the intersections of education, workforce, health, and financial innovation. The lens: global, but rooted in the human lifecycle, from pre-K classrooms to retirement planning. The filter: measurable outcomes, scalable solutions, and founders who know their markets because they've lived them.
The Growth Studio is where the thesis becomes reality. Advise, Educate, Execute is the rhythm, and six to eighteen months inside this program turns early-stage companies into fundable contenders. KPIs are locked. AI is integrated. Boards are built and optimized. Leadership coaching stiffens spines. Partnerships flip into revenue. The model doesn't just prepare companies for Series A, it forces them to prove they deserve the capital in the first place.
The portfolio is already a highlight reel. Robin is driving mental health resilience with BRV's studio support. TOMi is transforming classrooms while expanding into the U.S. with BRV's guidance. ClassBank raised seven figures to scale financial literacy. Unruly Studios built a math product rooted in play. Dailyhuman brought its Mindsets Lab into the WNBA, putting mental wellness into athletes' performance pipelines. These are companies winning contracts, hitting ARR north of a million, and expanding statewide, with BRV's fingerprints on every milestone.
The operators behind the curtain make the difference. John Boyle drives growth strategies forged over two decades. Runy Pswarayi turns design into a brand edge. Margo Reynolds brings K12 expertise to marketing and communications. Joël Reyes engineers U.S. market entry. Matt Webster sets the pace on technology and AI. Surrounding them is a Practitioner Advisory Board stacked with superintendents, CEOs, and education leaders who translate system-level insight into market advantage.
The differentiator is clear. Other firms scatter checks. Brass Ring Ventures builds machines. They prioritize exit pathways from day one, layer impact measurement into growth, and apply a diversity lens that puts capital into the hands of founders too often left out of the room. The recognition is already stacking, BRV was named one of the 2024 Edtech Venture Studios to Watch.
Today, the brass ring is not an illusion. It's right there, within reach. Twenty-seven portfolio companies are scaling across education, health, workforce, and fintech, and they're building teams that match their ambition.
TOMi - https://tomi.ai/careers/
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