The EVCA leadership is dedicated to building community across and empowering the next generation of venture capitalists through an array of activities—from hosting events, knowledge sharing, and connecting others. This EVCA Leadership Spotlight Series is intended to help the broader community get to know what's going on behind the scenes at the EVCA, as well as highlight the valuable contributions of those individuals who make the EVCA possible. Accordingly, it's a great privilege for us to announce this EVCA Leadership Spotlight on our very own EVCA EdTech Vertical Lead, Susan Wang of Learn Capital.
Susan Wang is a Principal at Learn Capital, where she is responsible for sourcing, researching, evaluating, and supporting companies changing the ways we learn and work. Prior to joining Learn, Susan was a Senior Manager on the Strategy & Ventures team of Sesame Workshop, the creator of Sesame Street and other children’s educational programming. There, she worked on growth and strategic planning projects, and helped manage Sesame Ventures, the venture arm of the company that invests in mission-aligned early-stage kids-oriented startups.
Susan began her career in investment banking at Credit Suisse after earning her BCOM and BA in Math at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. She has since worked in Toronto, Shanghai, New York City, and San Francisco. In her spare time, Susan enjoys reading, learning, running, singing, and journalism.
EVCA: Could you explain more about what you do in your role as an EdTech Vertical lead at EVCA?
Susan: I am an EdTech vertical lead, along with my co-leads Judy Park and Gloria Samen from Owl Ventures. In this role, I help plan and organize events and initiatives for the edtech community in EVCA, with a focus around community building and knowledge/resource sharing for investors in EdTech (both from edtech-focused funds and generalist investors with an interest in edtech). We kicked off the event calendar with a fireside chat followed by Q&A with a panel of partners from Learn, Owl, and Rethink, which was conducted over Zoom given our members are distributed geographically. Going forward, we plan to host in-person happy hours for members to get to know each other better, either in NYC / SF where the three of us are based and where we have the most representation based on a survey of our members, or around edtech conferences / events. Other AMA / speaker events with senior investors or founders are also in the plans. Members are already sharing events / deals / resources organically in the #ed-tech channel in Slack, and I encourage anyone with an idea for future initiatives to reach out to myself, Judy, and Gloria – we’d love to get everyone involved with the community!
EVCA: What made you interested in taking a leadership role at EVCA?
Susan: I joined EVCA when I first moved to SF in the fall of 2019 for my role at Learn. At first, I was looking for different affinity groups / organizations to join since I’d just moved to a new city and started in a new role, and wanted to meet new friends and build a support network. As we all know, the pandemic happened a few months later and life moved online, and we were all stuck at home. During this isolating time, I relied on the Slack channels and “donut” for a sense of “having coworkers/peers around”, reaching out to other investors and responding to those who similarly found me via EVCA. Over time, I’ve gotten to know Adam and many other investors in the group, all via Zoom. I’m sure many others have a similar story with EVCA, and I think the sense of community and support members offer each other is invaluable. I’d like to replicate and expand on the experience I’ve had with EVCA, and help build the community for EdTech investors so we can offer support to and learn from each other.
EVCA: What's your favorite thing about working in venture capital and why? How about your least favorite thing and why?
Susan: I joined EVCA when I first moved to SF in the fall of 2019 for my role at Learn. At first, I was looking for different affinity groups / organizations to join since I’d just moved to a new city and started in a new role, and wanted to meet new friends and build a support network. As we all know, the pandemic happened a few months later and life moved online, and we were all stuck at home. During this isolating time, I relied on the Slack channels and “donut” for a sense of “having coworkers/peers around”, reaching out to other investors and responding to those who similarly found me via EVCA. Over time, I’ve gotten to know Adam and many other investors in the group, all via Zoom. I’m sure many others have a similar story with EVCA, and I think the sense of community and support members offer each other is invaluable. I’d like to replicate and expand on the experience I’ve had with EVCA, and help build the community for EdTech investors so we can offer support to and learn from each other.
Interested in taking on an EVCA leadership role? The EVCA leadership is dedicated to empowering the next generation of VCs through an array of activities—running 40+ channels on from hosting events, knowledge sharing, and connecting others. If interested in pursuing an EVCA leadership role, click here.
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