- Guild Education announced it has raised funding from NBA superstar Steph Curry through the SC30 venture firm
Guild Education — a mission-based company that provides opportunities for America’s workforce through education — announced it received an investment from NBA superstar Stephen Curry. Curry and Guild Education CEO and co-founder Rachel Carlson had confirmed the investment via TechCrunch.
Guild Education works with several employers like Walmart, Discover Financial, The Walt Disney Company, Lowe’s and Chipotle to offer debt-free education as a benefit for supporting employees who want to receive a college degree or increase their skills through graduate school courses.
There are over 30 million working adults without a high school diploma and 70% of the U.S. population does not have a college degree. So Carlson and Brittany Stich launched Guild Education to help those groups gain an education through their employer’s tuition benefits thus leading to increased employee satisfaction, and improved retention for employers.
“Like all of us here at Guild, Stephen recognizes that while talent is equally distributed, opportunity is not,” said Carlson in a statement. “We are excited to partner with Stephen to unlock opportunity through education for even more working Americans, and we are grateful for his commitment to closing the education gap – particularly among low and middle-income Americans.”
The investment from Curry was provided through SC30 Inc., which is a venture firm that manages his investments, philanthropy, media, and brand partnerships that is also led by its president Bryant Barr. SC30 also aligns with the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation mission. Steph Curry founded Eat. Learn. Play with his wife Ayesha Curry — who is focused on fighting childhood hunger and ensuring children have access to nutritious food.
“The timing was crazy because of our Eat. Learn. Play Foundation that launched last July,” added Steph Curry in an interview with TechCrunch. “This is an opportunity to really target that Learn piece and explore how important it is in terms of college education and college completion. And we’re trying to attack that from elementary school and on.”
