Tanya Van Court
Tanya Van Court is an American businesswoman who started Goalsetter, a financial education app for kids, and serves as its CEO. She was born in Oakland, California. Her mother died when Tanya was 6, and she was raised by her aunt, who taught her about Black history and science, technology, engineering, and math. She studied at Stanford University, earning a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering in 1994 and a master's degree in industrial engineering in 2001.
Tanya worked as a vice president of business development at Covad Communications. When Covad went public in 2000, her stock was worth over $1 million, but the dot-com crash in 2001 wiped out those gains. She has also held executive roles at ESPN and Nickelodeon, and was senior vice president of marketing for Discovery Education.
The idea for Goalsetter came after her daughter asked for an investment account and a bike for her ninth birthday. In 2016, she launched Goalsetter to teach kids about money and fintech. She hopes financial education will help close the racial wealth gap in America, noting a Federal Reserve report that the typical white family has eight times the wealth of a typical Black family.
Goalsetter was featured on Shark Tank, where she found it hard to get investors and was told the company was “uninvestable.” After the murder of George Floyd, the business gained more support and raised about $3.9 million in seed money. In 2021, investors included NBA stars Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, and Andre Drummond. Even with this funding, Van Court says the company was raising far less than many similar ventures.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 01:27 (CET).