More than a decade ago, I had the privilege of pitching USV when I was raising capital for the podcasting startup I was building at the time, Anchor. While I dreaded many fundraising pitches, I was excited for this one, for a few reasons. First, USV was one of the world's most legendary and best performing venture firms, especially in New York, where I’m from and where we were building the company. Second, I knew they were into products that more mainstream VCs wouldn't touch, and few others ...

More than a decade ago, I had the privilege of pitching USV when I was raising capital for the podcasting startup I was building at the time, Anchor. While I dreaded many fundraising pitches, I was excited for this one, for a few reasons. First, USV was one of the world's most legendary and best performing venture firms, especially in New York, where I’m from and where we were building the company. Second, I knew they were into products that more mainstream VCs wouldn't touch, and few others ...

We're thrilled to welcome Mike Mignano to the USV partnership. Mike has been part of the NYC ecosystem and a friend of USV for over a decade. Many of us first got to know him when he was raising capital for Anchor, the company he built and later sold to Spotify. We didn't invest, but we started a relationship that stuck. When Mike joined Lightspeed, we had the chance to coinvest, work on boards together, push each other on theses, and understand how he thinks about companies, people, and oppo...

We're thrilled to welcome Mike Mignano to the USV partnership. Mike has been part of the NYC ecosystem and a friend of USV for over a decade. Many of us first got to know him when he was raising capital for Anchor, the company he built and later sold to Spotify. We didn't invest, but we started a relationship that stuck. When Mike joined Lightspeed, we had the chance to coinvest, work on boards together, push each other on theses, and understand how he thinks about companies, people, and oppo...

In the past year, we've roughly doubled the size of our team at USV — not by hiring more people, but by building AI agents that work alongside us. These agents research companies, review legal documents, write code & build apps, maintain our internal databases and much more. They aren't just chatbots who answer the occasional question – they’re digital teammates, integrated in our team spaces and handling real operational tasks. The platform we built them on is Tasklet, and today we are excit...

In the past year, we've roughly doubled the size of our team at USV — not by hiring more people, but by building AI agents that work alongside us. These agents research companies, review legal documents, write code & build apps, maintain our internal databases and much more. They aren't just chatbots who answer the occasional question – they’re digital teammates, integrated in our team spaces and handling real operational tasks. The platform we built them on is Tasklet, and today we are excit...

There’s a great story in Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn about how a temporary wooden structure left over from World War II became one of the most loved buildings at MIT. During the war, MIT needed a new building to house the urgent classified development of radar technology. They hastily built a three story wood structure to fit the thousands of additional researchers: You know those time lapse photographs they make of construction of skyscrapers? Well Building 20 went up like that – alm...

There’s a great story in Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn about how a temporary wooden structure left over from World War II became one of the most loved buildings at MIT. During the war, MIT needed a new building to house the urgent classified development of radar technology. They hastily built a three story wood structure to fit the thousands of additional researchers: You know those time lapse photographs they make of construction of skyscrapers? Well Building 20 went up like that – alm...

It is said that while history doesn’t repeat, it does rhyme. This is a pattern we've observed before in the Internet era. When a novel technology arrives, early infrastructure is controlled (or attempted to be controlled) by a small number of players who prefer to create and extract value inside their walls (so called “walled gardens”). The user's experiences here are typically good enough (or novel enough) that most users don’t ask what they're missing. And then something happens: bottom-up,...

It is said that while history doesn’t repeat, it does rhyme. This is a pattern we've observed before in the Internet era. When a novel technology arrives, early infrastructure is controlled (or attempted to be controlled) by a small number of players who prefer to create and extract value inside their walls (so called “walled gardens”). The user's experiences here are typically good enough (or novel enough) that most users don’t ask what they're missing. And then something happens: bottom-up,...

The world is becoming programmable and, increasingly, easy to program. But the underlying and consistent current running through this massive and systemic wave is a need for abundant, efficient energy. The rate of change makes what’s possible feel unbounded but energy is the prime constraint. For a long time, we’ve believed at USV that the most interesting opportunities emerge from creating and accessing unique datasets that are self-improving. Historically, these have existed inside software...

The world is becoming programmable and, increasingly, easy to program. But the underlying and consistent current running through this massive and systemic wave is a need for abundant, efficient energy. The rate of change makes what’s possible feel unbounded but energy is the prime constraint. For a long time, we’ve believed at USV that the most interesting opportunities emerge from creating and accessing unique datasets that are self-improving. Historically, these have existed inside software...