Nectir, a Playa Vista-based edtech platform that uses generative artificial intelligence, is the brainchild of Kavitta Ghai and Jordan Long, who developed the company when they were struggling undergraduate students at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Today, the company has more than $6 million in seed funding and partnerships with schools like Los Angeles Pacific University. The Business Journal sat down with Ghai to discuss the success that she and Long have achieved since the launch of their company.
You’ve spoken about how having ADHD and autism made the classroom setting really difficult for you, and you were paying thousands in tuition “to be really uncomfortable.” Women are often diagnosed much later with neurodevelopmental disorders than men are, which puts them at a disadvantage in the classroom. Many studies have shown how lack of early intervention can lead to women growing up with less confidence.
For me it was 24, and I spent the first 24 years of my life being like, ‘Oh it’s me, I’m the problem. It must be my fault that my brain isn’t working in this setting.’ That’s just never how the education system should make anyone feel, just because it’s one-size-fits-all and not a lot of people fit in that one size.
Nectir was built in part to help students learn and communicate in the way that is most effective for them. How do you make sure that, as you build your company, you’re not playing into the one-size-fits-all system when you’re inherently working with one-size-fits-all systems that are oppressive to people who learn differently?
I think one of the toughest parts about starting this company is I kind of had to work with my oppressor, which was the education system. What I think we can sometimes lose sight of when we’re trying to make change happen at the systemic level is that it feels like the answer is to overthrow the current system and rebuild a new one, right?
But in order to actually make change happen, you’ve got to work with the system that is there. We can’t get rid of all the teachers, the administrators, the staff. There’s a lot of really good people who really do care. They’re just kind of stuck in this structure that hasn’t worked for a very long time. And it’s so ingrained in our nation and our society in a way we don’t even realize that it’s really hard to make that change happen. It’s basically like we’re all trapped in this prison that we built and it’s not really the fault of anyone in the prison.
I’m upset at the system, not the people who are a part of it. And those are the people I work with every day to implement Nectir and figure out, what do you need us to build? What are the pain points that you’re facing? How do we build AI in a way that feels safe for you and your students? I think in a way it helps me heal my wound because I have to forgive them in order to work with them to make it better.
What are some of the structural issues you think about for companies like yours that maybe prevent more innovation from happening?
My brain goes back to this fact at least once a week, the fact that female CEOs only get 2% of VC funding. And that number has not improved – 98% of VC funding going to male CEOs and male led companies doesn’t make any sense. If you look at who is building the innovations and the products that we use, it should be a pretty equal representation of our society. Don’t we want the people who are building our future to look and sound like us and understand the problems that we have?
You can make the argument that investors have fiduciary duty to their (limited partners). They’re just investing in what’s going to make them more money. For every dollar that’s invested in male-led companies, VCs get on average 30 cents back. For every dollar that’s invested in female-led companies, VCs on average get 70 cents back. They’re making more than double the return for female CEOs.
