Shauntel Garvey of Reach Capital will join us to judge this year’s Startup Battlefield

TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield is one of the most popular parts of our annual TechCrunch Disrupt conference which is happening on September 21-23 this year. Now we’re very excited to reveal one of the fine people who will be judging Startup Battlefield at this year’s all-virtual event in September: Shauntel Garvey, a general partner at Reach Capital, a VC specializing in the world of education technology.

Startup Battlefield sees startups applying far and wide for a chance to pitch their ideas to a panel, and to all of us in the audience, giving the finalists a lot of exposure and a shot at winning the grand prize of $50,000. Startups: You can apply to be a part of the action here.

Edtech has seen a huge surge of interest in the last year of pandemic living, and that’s led to a pretty notable rise in education startups, more funding for education technology and a lot more attention paid to voices in edtech.

That’s because not only is edtech of huge importance to society and our economy, but those in the field have picked up a lot of learnings that apply well outside of edtech.

They know firsthand about engagement and how to get it; connecting with larger ecosystems of stakeholders; learning to work with public and private bodies; and the ins and outs of tapping into the latest innovations in areas like streaming, artificial intelligence and graphics to get the most out of a concept.

All of this makes Garvey a great person to have as a judge, someone with specific-area knowledge but very aware of how it relates to the wider challenges and opportunities in tech.

Garvey is a co-founder and general partner at Reach Capital, a Silicon Valley VC focused on the wider opportunity within the educational spectrum, backing the likes of ClassDojo, Springboard, Outschool, Handshake, Winnie and many more. Garvey herself currently sits on the boards of Riipen, FourthRev, Holberton School and Ellevation Education.

Her experience in edtech extends back years. Before Reach, she was a partner at the NewSchools Seed Fund and she has invested in more than 40 early-stage edtech companies, including Newsela, Nearpod and SchoolMint. She is also not all about edtech: Before turning to education and startups, Garvey trained and worked as a chemical engineer. We’re really looking forward to her input as a Startup Battlefield judge.

If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, TechCrunch Disrupt is coming up around the corner, September 21-23. This will be our second year of having the conference in an all-virtual format, and we have a lot of great speakers, networking opportunities and other things planned — free of physical constraints, we can fly! — and we really hope you’ll join us.