A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 5, 2020

Most of USV’s big wins have been in companies where we were the first institutional VC to talk to the company or where we had way more conviction about the opportunity than other investors at the time of our investment. ” He was surprised and said “You are the first VC to say that.” That’s how you win big.

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TechCrunch

OCTOBER 22, 2020

Olaf Hannemann, partner, CV VC AG. Philipp Stauffer, partner, FYRFLY Venture Partners. Claude Donzé , partner, Tomahawk.VC. Lucian Wagner, partner, Privilège Ventures. Maximilian Spelmeyer , partner, SIX Fintech Ventures. Andreas Iten , partner, F10. Michael Blank , partner, investiere. Ninja Struye de Swielande , partner, Lakestar.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

For most of my career as a VC, the IPO has been the holy grail. I don’t take as much offense to this situation as others in the VC business have. I have viewed it as a mutually beneficial relationship between the top banks, VC firms, and the founders and CEOs who lead our portfolio companies. We will see.

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 22, 2021

Just a month into 2021, Egyptian fintech startup Cassbana raised a $1 million pre-seed investment led by VC firm Disruptech in a bid to drive expansion within the country. Andreata Muforo is a partner at TLcom Capital, a pan-African early-stage VC firm. So why the sudden change in appetite from investors?

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 19, 2021

Despite a pandemic that sparked a global recession, 2020 was still a record year for venture capital investments into American startups. venture capital market in 2020 was hot, it was not newly so. So far, 2021’s startup financing and exit market appears to be the mirror of what we saw in late 2020. But while the U.S.

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Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 23, 2015

We talk a lot about his schooling, his early jobs as a developer and then as a VC and we talk about his decision to spend winters in Los Angeles. Fred is generous with his time and advice and I hope has shaped a generation of VCs for the better. You can’t time VC investing markets. VC investing is hard work.

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This is going to be BIG.

FEBRUARY 27, 2022

That all being said, new VC markets are emerging—and during the pandemic, lots of New Yorkers and folks from the Valley decamped to Miami or Austin. I know of one deal where the significant other of a VC was the head of a staunchly anti-LGBTQ+ lobbying organization—and the investor was offering money to a gay founder. Plenty of bros.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 18, 2020

I have been investing in developer tools since the earliest days of my VC career. USV TEAM POSTS: Albert Wenger — Feb 11, 2020 Birthday Wish: Contributions to Climate Crisis Collective Nick Grossman — Feb 10, 2020 Proof of Transfer (PoX) Dani Grant — Feb 10, 2020 Crypto, Social?

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

AUGUST 17, 2020

It comes with the territory in VC. USV TEAM POSTS: Matt Cynamon — Aug 13, 2020 A Quick Update On Hiring Albert Wenger — Aug 13, 2020 Marxism Remains a Dangerous Idea. I met the founders and was happy for them. Then I woke up. Investments that don’t work haunt me. It isn’t the losing money part.

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500

JUNE 9, 2020

Supply chains have been disrupted, businesses have had to close or operate at limited capacity for months, and even founders have had to expand their fundraising timeframes as we saw in our 2020 Female Founders Data Report. As a VC firm, we’ve had to adapt many aspects of our business as well.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 17, 2020

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 11, 2020. USV TEAM POSTS: Hanel Baveja — Sep 10, 2020 Mental Healthcare 3.0 Our team is planning to submit a formal request for Apple to allow its users to earn crypto and see a list of decentralized finance apps. We'll keep you updated on what we hear back. It must stop.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 20, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Nick Grossman — Feb 17, 2020 Cryptographic Identity Albert Wenger — Feb 11, 2020 Birthday Wish: Contributions to Climate Crisis Collective Dani Grant — Feb 10, 2020 Crypto, Social?

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 20, 2020

If you search for “vc open for business” on Twitter , you will see almost universal scorn for the idea that VCs are open for business right now. We have mostly seen VC firms live up to the commitments they made pre-pandemic and in the cases where terms changed, it has not been not gratuitous. It may in fact be open.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MARCH 12, 2020

I got an email from a well known journalist who covers the VC sector today. He was asking a bunch of VCs a few questions that basically can be summed up “are you open for business?” It will be interesting to see where his informal survey of the VC business shakes out.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MARCH 19, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Hannah Murdoch — Mar 18, 2020 Joining USV David Gabeau — Mar 18, 2020 David @ USV Hanel Baveja — Mar 18, 2020 Joining Union Square Ventures Nick Grossman — Mar 17, 2020 The Great Shift to Video Albert Wenger — Mar 16, 2020 COVID19 What’s Next?

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TechCrunch

JANUARY 25, 2021

2019 saw the local VC firm invest in six companies. Of the total investments raised in 2019 and 2020, 54gene contributed more than half of those numbers by raising $4.5 From the outside in, startups see Microtraction and other early-stage VC firms like Ventures Platform as a means to that end.

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This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 12, 2020

My largest investor was a financial firm that invested in my prior funds to get into the VC business—and in the six years since they first invested, they had built out a team and a strategy that no longer involved doing much seed. 2020: “Hold my beer.” I was there for the first Etsy VC pitch meeting in a Fort Greene apartment.

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Dream It

APRIL 7, 2020

— samir kaji (@Samirkaji) April 7, 2020 To guide startups through the confusion, Dreamit interviewed three leaders helping startups secure emergency funding from different perspectives as bankers, attorneys, and investors. The information on this page was updated on April 6th, 2020. Last Friday was anything but orderly.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 8, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Nick Grossman — Oct 2, 2020 USV Algorand Transparency Statement, Q3 2020 Rebecca Kaden — Oct 1, 2020 Sora. But we will do it differently and more efficiently than we used to do it because we all learned some new tricks during the pandemic. And that is a good thing.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

link] — Ben Siscovick (@bsiscovick) February 26, 2020. In that post, I argued that the venture capital business could not sustain more than $20bn a year of new capital coming into it and continue to produce good returns to the investors in VC funds. — Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) February 27, 2020. All public.

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Revolution

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

Case in point: only 1% of 2022 VC dollars went to Black founders, a marked decrease year over year. On the heels of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests, we recognized our role in leveraging the Rise of the Rest platform we built to be more explicit about leveling the playing field — not just in terms of place, but also in terms of people.

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TechCrunch

MAY 28, 2022

.” The document reads like a follow-up course to its infamously ill-timed “Coronavirus: The Black Swan of 2020” memo of March 2020.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 1, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Rebecca Kaden — Oct 1, 2020 Sora Albert Wenger — Sep 24, 2020 Fear is the Mind-Killer Nick Grossman — Sep 23, 2020 No Wasted Footsteps.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

MAY 1, 2022

However, we were not able to do that in 2020 and 2021 so this was our first Portfolio Summit since 2019. Those of us who work in VC and startups can work remotely and get most everything we need done. Last week we held USV’s annual Portfolio Summit here in NYC. We learned some new tricks over the last two years.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

Matt and many members of his leadership team got the band back together early this year and started a new company called Bolster in partnership with Silicon Valley Bank and the early-stage VC firm High Alpha. USV TEAM POSTS: Hanel Baveja — Sep 1, 2020 Mental Healthcare 3.0.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 27, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Gillian Munson — Oct 20, 2020 Our Investment in Possible Nick Grossman — Oct 20, 2020 Making Butter with Jam Albert Wenger — Oct 18, 2020 How Much Clothing is Enough? They are eager to support entrepreneurs of all kinds who are working to make a better NYC. A Personal Experiment.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2021

As I wrote yesterday , I think the trends that were accelerated in 2020 will not reverse in 2021, although the slope of the adoption curves will likely flatten a fair bit. We are already seeing that happen in the finance sector, with breakout projects in decentralized finance in 2020 like Compound, Yearn, and Uniswap (a USV funded project).

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

NOVEMBER 24, 2020

I saw this tweet in my feed yesterday and read the New Yorker piece when I woke up this morning: @fdestin @MacConwell @HarryStebbings any VC 'fairy godfathers of success' viewpoints? "Building " #startups @fredwilson blog fodder [link] — Claudia Lamb (@cloudylamb) November 23, 2020. Here’s what I think.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 8, 2020

albertwenger) March 28, 2020. USV TEAM POSTS: Albert Wenger — Apr 6, 2020 Normalcy Bias: We Live in a Dynamic World (But People Don’t Believe It) Nick Grossman — Apr 3, 2020 Quarantine Creativity. That way, if you are infected and don’t know it, you won’t spread the virus to others.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JULY 8, 2020

The second quarter of 2020 is now behind us and we will see the data on it soon. But looking back on the second quarter of 2020, what I see is a hyperactive venture capital market firing on all cylinders. I suspect what we will see is a very active venture capital market, quite the opposite of what was initially expected.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 28, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Gillian Munson — Oct 20, 2020 Our Investment in Possible Nick Grossman — Oct 20, 2020 Making Butter with Jam Albert Wenger — Oct 18, 2020 How Much Clothing is Enough? A Personal Experiment.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 13, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Albert Wenger — Apr 12, 2020 Help Promote Earth Day Live Hannah Murdoch — Apr 8, 2020 What We’re Learning About How We Learn Hanel Baveja — Apr 8, 2020 What We’re Learning About How We Learn Nick Grossman — Apr 3, 2020 Quarantine Creativity. It makes a lot of sense.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

APRIL 6, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Albert Wenger — Apr 4, 2020 VC Backed Startups and PPP: Do You Really Need It? Nick Grossman — Apr 3, 2020 Quarantine Creativity. A remote internship might not be as great as an in-person one this summer, but it is way better than sitting at home doing nothing.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

JANUARY 1, 2020

It’s 2020. So, I am starting out 2020 in an optimistic mood and here are some predictions for the decade that we are now in. Time to look forward to the decade that is upon us. This is an important decade for mankind. 1/ The looming climate crisis will be to this century what the two world wars were to the previous one.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

OCTOBER 20, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Nick Grossman — Oct 20, 2020 Making Butter with Jam Albert Wenger — Oct 18, 2020 How Much Clothing is Enough? USV is a seed investor in Jam along with our friends at Version One, Box Group, and Village Global. So if you want a better way to collect feedback on your application, spread some jam on it.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Hanel Baveja — Sep 10, 2020 Mental Healthcare 3.0 The next three events are shown here: If you are interested in participating in a Circulate Event, pls sign up here. There are a few remaining spots open for the event Thursday night on Education.

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A VC: Musings of a VC in NYC

NOVEMBER 2, 2020

USV TEAM POSTS: Albert Wenger — Oct 30, 2020 The Coming Fight for Control of the Internet. It is also used by kids, parents, tutors, and anyone else who wants to help a child learn to instruct a machine to do something fun and rewarding. That’s the power of using software to go direct to learners.

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