The people behind the spark

Don Burton founded LearnStart in 2017 and leads it as Managing Partner, backing seed-stage edtech, human-capital / HR-tech, and education-SaaS companies with a global lens. A lifelong education builder, Don has created and operated edtech ventures both independently and inside large organizations: he founded A-Ha! Learning Center, a play-and-learning center for children and families in New York City, and eebee's Adventures, a baby-media company; co-built Parent Partners (acquired by The Washington Post & Kaplan Education); and led education-innovation initiatives inside The Walt Disney Company and Kaplan. He holds a B.A. from Duke University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Michael Staton is a General Partner at LearnStart and a Partner at Learn Capital, where he has helped lead investments into companies including Coursera, Minerva, and Brilliant. A former public-school teacher, Michael brings an operator's intuition for education to early-stage investing. He founded and was CEO of Uversity, a pioneer of social enrollment-management technology in higher education, where he secured the first venture investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's U.S. programs into a private company. He served as a Venture Partner and Community Advisor to NewSchools Venture Fund's Seed Fund (now Reach Capital), and led Teach For America's Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Initiative, where he supported and invested in 200+ early-stage education entrepreneurs. He was named to Forbes' 2015 "30 Under 30 in Education," and more recently founded CoLearn.