Writing

As venture capitalists, we understand how valuable an injection of capital into an early-stage, fast-growing business can be. But our industry has a particular set of economics, one that has skewed the availability of equity investment towards startups in the [...]  Read more

Right now, there are thousands of scientists whose research is being held up because they lack access to the experimental expertise needed to test a hypothesis or verify a result. But while we have seen how online marketplaces can dramatically [...]  Read more

Today Foursquare announced that it has raised $41 million coming from its existing investors (including USV) and adding Silver Lake's Waterman Fund. This puts the company in a great position to continue executing at the intersection of local, mobile and [...]  Read more

What's in your kitchen? Probably a stove, sink, running water, oven, refrigerator, cutlery and other utensils, sometimes a microwave oven. Precisely the same things as every commercial restaurant kitchen. Every kitchen is indeed an ad hoc restaurant waiting to happen. [...]  Read more

As more and more economic activity moves online, fraud is never far behind. Online fraud is in many ways more attractive to criminals as it can be committed at a safe distance from its targets and scales far better. It [...]  Read more

We're excited to announce today that USV led the recent round of financing in Hailo, the e-hail company based in London and New York. Hailo is rapidly becoming a global platform for regulated taxi service and we are delighted to [...]  Read more

If you follow our investment strategy, you know we love internet-based marketplaces that enable direct transactions between interested parties. What is less well known is that our focus extends beyond consumer-facing marketplaces such as Etsy and Lending Club. Last week [...]  Read more