Education technology has an awkward middle ground. The sector can often move too slowly for venture capital, yet it may require more firepower than a typical small-business loan can provide. Plus, so many founders may come from the teaching sector themselves, and may be unable to self-fund.

This dynamic often leaves a "missing middle" of education companies, profitable, impactful, but unlikely to become unicorns, out in the cold when it comes to funding and support.

Enter Paperbacked, the specialist venture studio, is betting that the most viable path for Australian education founders isn't hyper-growth, but sustainable scale.

The studio is the brainchild of Lindsey Dang, a founder who lived the problem herself. Dang bootstrapped Lindsey's VCE Tutoring to seven-figure annual revenue while simultaneously completing dual law and arts degrees at Monash University.

Now, while studying for a Master of Arts in Educational Technology at Columbia University, she is pivoting from operator to backer, with a twist.

"Traditional VCs typically avoid education businesses because they're perceived as difficult to scale," said Dang. "But that gap creates an opportunity to build something different; a model that values sustainable growth, pedagogical rigour and founder autonomy over 100x returns."

Paperbacked is distinguishing itself from the standard accelerator or incubator model by taking a hands-on "co-founder" role.

Rather than writing a check and waiting for board meetings, the studio provides an integrated execution team, covering curriculum design, operations, and go-to-market strategy, in exchange for equity or revenue-share positions.

Notably, the firm eschews the agency retainer model entirely, aligning its incentives directly with the portfolio company's performance.

It also enforces a strict "one venture per category" rule to avoid portfolio cannibalisation.

Paperbacked Advisor Victor Li, an active EdTech angel investor, argues that this operational support is the missing link for founders who often come from teaching backgrounds rather than business schools.

"Education founders often lack access to operators who understand pedagogy, compliance and curriculum as well as growth mechanics," Li said. "Paperbacked's edge is that it brings lived experience and systematic execution."

The studio’s launch comes at an inflection point for the Australian education sector, which is currently facing a crisis of confidence. Recent NAPLAN results show one-third of students failing to meet literacy and numeracy benchmarks, while teacher standards are facing their first major review in 15 years.

Dang believes the solution to these systemic issues won't come from policy reform alone, but from private sector innovation that refuses to compromise on quality for the sake of speed.

"There's a risk that education becomes devalued if the companies and institutions supporting it don't keep pace with innovation," Dang said. "We're seeing literacy decline, teacher shortages and an attention crisis. Education needs better infrastructure and better brands to recapture the hearts and minds of learners."

Paperbacked is launching with Dang’s own Lindsey's VCE Tutoring as its initial portfolio asset. This business already employs several full-time staff. The studio plans to launch three additional ventures across the APAC region in 2026.

The firm is currently scouting for founders in three distinct revenue bands:

For Dang, the ultimate goal is to move the industry away from the lonely, siloed experience of the typical edtech founder.

"Right now, education founders build in isolation. There's no cohesive community, no shared playbook," she said. "I want Paperbacked to become the place where the best education founders gather and where we collectively raise the bar on what an education company can be."