This AI-based startup wants to connect teachers and investors for education innovation

Step aside, Tinder and Hinge. There’s a new matchmaking site in town.

Edtech startup edmaven launched a Kickstarter campaign this month for its AI-driven social networking site. The downtown D.C.-based startup hosts an online networking service, currently in beta, which connects teachers, educational organizations, entrepreneurs and investors working on education reform projects, and help these projects move forward. The model is currently free in the beta model, but will eventually move to a subscription-based service.

Cofounders Jeanne Allen, who is also the founder and CEO of the Center for Education Reform (CER), and Michael Moe, cofounder of GSV Asset Management, will lead the team. The CER and investment platform Global Silicon Valley partnered to create edmaven. The company is seeking to raise $60,000 through the Kickstarter, which will help the company build on its current development plans.

“edmaven deploys and is developing a proprietary AI program that can ensure people are connected to others that can best help them fulfill their goals…Users will see the value as they engage,” Allen told Technical.ly.

Funding from the Kickstarter campaign will be used to update the company’s website beginning in the third quarter. That upgrade will add a talent search option, an investor hub and expand the content library. Donors will also receive extended memberships and premium subscriptions to the site.

Allen was unable to share specifics on how the platform works, but said that edmaven uses proprietary AI to match members with similar goals or interests. This could include investors looking for edtech companies to fund, someone with an education solution or tool seeking users or schools looking for a very specialized teacher.

“Our mission is to boil the ocean; transform education, and ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in the future,” Allen said in a statement. “We want edmaven to be the go-to site for people with the ideas we need to accelerate education innovation.”