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John Buttrick – Apr 6, 2017
In July 2011, we were fortunate to lead the Series D financing round in Lending Club, founded in 2006 by Renaud Laplanche. Along with Zopa (UK company) and Prosper, Lending Club was a pioneer of the now-familiar marketplace lending model, which cut interest costs for high quality borrowers by as much as 50% (not a typo) and at the same time offered investors attractive risk-adjusted returns not available elsewhere. This was a fundamental innovation in financial services that is thriving globally and will continue to gain in importance. Read more
USV Session: Building the Healthcare Stack
Lauren Young – Mar 6, 2017
The USV portfolio network consists of 67 active companies with over 7,000 employees across the US, Canada and Europe. We believe in using the power of networks to help our portfolio companies build better businesses through peer to peer learning, external network relationships, and shared resources. On average we host 60 portfolio events each year and, in 2017 we are on track to host nearly 80 in total. Read more
Call for Genomics and Software-driven Biology Startups
Jennifer Campbell – Feb 28, 2017
Everyone knows the big Web 2.0 companies use hundreds of data points to determine which ad we might prefer. And yet — in the deathmatch against disease, we reduce human health to single variables. Read more
Top Hat
Albert Wenger – Feb 15, 2017
Even back when I was in graduate school, I found the price of textbooks to be high and their quality to vary widely. Now that I have children taking college courses, I was shocked to find textbooks that cost over $200 and are still large physical objects that have to be lugged around! The high prices and lack of innovation are the result of a market structure which has become highly concentrated among just a few textbook publishers. That's why I am excited to announce that USV has led a new round of financing for Toronto-based Top Hat, which last year launched a content marketplace for higher education. Read more
Tucows
Brad Burnham – Feb 6, 2017
Union Square Ventures has made a substantial investment in Tucows, a 23 year old company company that has been publicly traded for over 15 years. Since we have never before invested in a public company, that requires a bit of an explanation. Read more
Shippo and the Power of Abstraction: Introducing USPS ePostage
Albert Wenger – Jan 12, 2017
Our portfolio company Shippo today announced that it is now providing all customers with access to the United States Postal Service ePostage program. Shippo is the first company to have received such a license from the USPS since 1999. But [...] Read more