USV

Union Square Ventures (USV) is a New York City-based venture capital firm founded in 2003 by Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham. The firm operates with a thesis-driven approach, investing in early-stage and growth-stage companies at the edge of large markets being transformed by technological and societal pressures. USV runs three fund strategies: a Core Fund (seed and Series A across internet-enabled sectors), a Climate Fund (early-stage climate mitigation and adaptation), and an Opportunity Fund (later-stage investments).

USV has backed more than 130 companies since its founding, with notable portfolio companies including Twitter, Coinbase, Etsy, Stripe, Cloudflare, Duolingo, Kickstarter, and MongoDB. The firm invests across sectors including fintech, marketplaces, developer tools, health, education, and decentralized systems. Its most recent core fund raised $275 million in 2022.

USV has been an active investor in blockchain and cryptocurrency since its Series A investment in Coinbase in 2013. Other crypto and Web3 portfolio companies include Stacks, Helium (Nova Labs), Farcaster, Uniswap, Arweave, Filecoin, and Multicoin Capital. The firm published its “Fat Protocols” thesis in 2016, which became a widely cited framework for understanding value accrual in decentralized blockchain networks.