Several private schools in Silicon Valley, including Crystal Springs Uplands School and Saint Francis High School, have created miniature venture capital funds fueled by donations from parents connected to firms such as Lightspeed, Sequoia, and Battery Ventures. Saint Francis High School in Mountain View pioneered the approach with a 15,000-dollar pre-IPO investment in Snap that returned 34 million dollars when the company went public in 2017. Crystal Springs now operates its own Crystal Growth Fund, holding approximately 1.75 million dollars in private investments across a 61.1-million-dollar total portfolio. Menlo School also maintains a venture capital endowment worth under one million dollars within a 122.6-million-dollar total endowment. Returns primarily fund tuition assistance and teacher retention bonuses in a region where the high cost of living makes educator recruitment challenging.
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