Bonsal Capital Celebrates 20 Years of Mission-Driven Investing

1999 was the final year of a dynamic millennium, a year with memorable national and global milestones. It was the year of U.S. tragedies, both man-made (a horrific Columbine school shooting and Fort Worth church bombing/shooting), and natural (via devastating CAT 5 tornado in Oklahoma City). It was the year the U.S. Women’s soccer team won the World Cup and the The Great One (Wayne Gretsky) retired from the NHL. It was also the year Bonsal Capital was formed, as Frank Bonsal Jr. began the multi-year wind down of his 25 year full-time role as General Partner and co-founder of one of the world’s most successful venture firms, New Enterprise Associates, better known today as NEA. And, although we didn’t deem it then as such, it was the year we began a mission-driven investment thesis in education.

“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been. “ — Wayne Gretsky

20 Years investing in education technology

We have been slow drip investing in education, healthcare, and technology for twenty years, with periods of intensity, depending on the full-time activity of principals. For its first two decades, Bonsal Capital has been a private, moreover family investment vehicle through which owners & members invested our own money in areas where we had interest, knowledge, and network alignment. Since our founding, we have made over twenty education investments with a super majority (80%) tilt to seed and early stage and are now entering a new phase of mission-driven emphases. We have had big wins (Blackboard, American Public Education, Moodlerooms, and Starfish Retention Solutions) and those instances where we learned. Mission-driven investing is long term investing, with recalibrated focus at vary stages of a company’s life cycle.

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I am an educator, investor, and ecosystem leader working for equity in impact, efficacy, and economic upside. From the Baltimore metro, as Managing Partner of Bonsal Capital, I invest in and support the Capital Region’s most promising education, healthcare, and cyber security companies among others with mission-driven upside.