Pathfinder Card, a financial technology platform built to simplify how families access and use Education Savings Account (ESA) funds, today announced a $12 million Series A led by Portage Ventures, with participation from Reach Capital, Gradient and Stand Together Ventures Lab. The round brings Pathfinder’s total funding to $16 million, including a $4 million seed round co-led by Reach Capital and Gradient. The funding will help accelerate platform innovation, support ongoing product development and expand Pathfinder’s reach as demand for school choice programs continues to grow across the United States.
School choice programs give families greater flexibility over how and where their children learn, but the financial infrastructure supporting those programs has not always kept pace with the rapid expansion of available ESA funds. Families face complex eligibility rules, administrative paperwork, and out-of-pocket expenses while they wait for reimbursement, as well as uncertainty over whether purchases will qualify.
Pathfinder has created a payment and tech infrastructure designed to address those challenges. Since launching in Arizona in March, the company has grown to serve more than 8,000 accounts in the state’s ESA program, growing approximately 2x month over month, largely through word of mouth. Education vendors are now recommending Pathfinder to families at checkout, both in person and online.
Arizona was a deliberate choice for Pathfinder’s first market. The state has been at the forefront of education choice and its ESA program has grown to serve more than 108,000 students, making it one of the country’s largest and most established ESA programs.
Co-founders Amaan Ahmad and Sidharth Jain started their journey in school choice by running their own microschool together in London, where they learned firsthand about the challenges with the existing infrastructure. “Arizona is the vanguard for education choice, and we are confident this model can be adapted to other states seamlessly,” said Amaan Ahmad, CEO and co-founder of Pathfinder. “As ESA programs grow, the next challenge is infrastructure, making purchases and administrative requirements easier for parents to navigate.”
Pathfinder combines the Pathfinder Education Visa® Charge Card with a companion app designed to help families purchase approved educational supplies and services using ESA funds. Its AI-powered technology provides real-time guidance on eligible expenses, catalogs receipts and generates documentation needed to validate purchases, reducing uncertainty and administrative work for parents. Pathfinder also files reimbursement requests on families’ behalf, and state-approved reimbursements pay down their card balances. The Pathfinder Card is issued by Column, N.A., which funds card balances with capacity to scale to $100 million as the program grows.
The company is expanding to meet growing demand as more states launch ESA programs, an estimated $26 billion a year in new federal tax-credit scholarships begins rolling out in January 2027 in states that opt in, and new rules open more than $600 billion in 529 plans for K-12 expenses. Together these programs give parents more ways than ever to fund their children’s education, but each comes with its own rules for how funds are accessed and approved. Pathfinder brings them together into a single, seamless experience for parents.
“School choice is expanding rapidly, but the financial infrastructure supporting these programs has not kept pace,” said Stephanie Choo, General Partner and Co-Head of Portage Ventures. “Pathfinder is addressing a critical gap by making education funding simpler, more transparent and easier for families to navigate. We are excited to partner with Amaan, Sidharth and the team as they build the leading platform for ESA families.”
“For millions of families, accessing ESA dollars is confusing, manual, and stressful,” said Caoimhe MacRunnels, Principal at Reach Capital. “Pathfinder is building the most trusted way to put those resources to work. We’re excited to back Amaan, Sid, and their team as they become the platform parents rely on to discover and fund high-quality education for their children.”
