Let’s explore two themes we believe are deeply important at USV: the fragmentation of search and broadening access to and accelerating our collective foundation of knowledge.
Search
In 2004 USV set out to raise its first fund. Fred and Brad compiled a fundraising brochure, and in it they wrote:
We believe there is a very real likelihood that the search industry will fragment over the next several years. As consumers expect ever more useful results from their queries, we expect to see the emergence of specialized engines that index specific areas in a much more comprehensive way than Google is likely to do.
This belief in search fragmentation led us to two important investments. The first was Indeed, a company focused on the unique characteristics of job search. The second was DuckDuckGo, a search engine that emphasizes privacy for its users as a primary value proposition.
The recent proliferation of LLMs has created a new opportunity to accelerate the fragmentation of search across verticals and themes. We have written that “the defining characteristics of these search dis-aggregators are that they will be differentiated from conventional search in UX (e.g. chat-based and other novel approaches), vertical or use-case specific to improve the thoroughness of answers, and powered by LLMs that uniquely improve as usage grows.”
Knowledge
Knowledge is composable. We make a discovery, document it, share it, and then build upon it. This is the knowledge loop, and we accelerate it when our learnings are shared freely and accessible for everyone to build upon. It was this ethos, after all, that fueled the invention of the world wide web by the scientist Tim Berners-Lee, who recognized the need for a linked information system after experiencing how difficult it was for scientists to track and share research at CERN laboratory (where he worked). Digital technologies have continued to play a crucial role in broadening access to knowledge and making it usable, as demonstrated by movements t that push for the open access of scientific publications.
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USV has a long history of investing in companies that are focused on doing exactly this, and we are believers that new technologies can continue to accelerate the knowledge loop.
Consensus
Sitting at the intersection of these two themes is Consensus, a company that makes the world’s expert knowledge discoverable and consumable for everyone. Consensus has built a new search engine that sits atop hundreds of millions of academic research papers across every discipline. This is a foundation of knowledge written by people who have dedicated their lives to its development and progress, and movements like open access are tailwinds that lead to its continuous growth. The Consensus product helps anyone quickly search for and find answers to questions that are backed by research while surfacing the underlying scientific knowledge and sources that drive them, making them discoverable, consumable, and interactive.
Millions of people in academia, healthcare, and biotech have used Consensus to answer their questions, inform their research, and develop their own set of knowledge. But what is most exciting is that Consensus is making this expert knowledge that was once only available to people in academia and specialized industries useful to everyone across the globe. They are expanding this market and driving the consumerization of the research knowledge economy. It’s working - we use Consensus regularly to answer questions that we are interested in, like: “Is ApoB a better measure of heart disease risk than LDL-C?” or “Does psilocybin work well for end-of-life therapy?”
Society is on a quest to get to the truth of things and they are turning to Consensus to do so. It turns out that a stellar user experience is key to unlocking the power of expert knowledge, and Consensus has found a way to make hundreds of millions of distinct pieces of research useful and actionable for everyone with an internet connection.
Behind Consensus are two talented entrepreneurs, Eric Olson and Christian Salem. Eric and Christian were Division One athletes who first met each other as teammates on the Northwestern University football team. They both come from families of academics, researchers, and healthcare workers, and came up with the idea for Consensus together during college. They have assembled a world-class team to tackle this opportunity (Consensus is hiring). We first met them a year ago when they laid out an ambitious plan and forecast. When we reconnected, they had beat every metric they set out to achieve and shipped everything they said they would and then some. Always a good sign, but to be expected from two founders with D1-football-player-sized chips on their shoulders.
Today we are delighted to announce that we are partnering with Eric, Christian and the Consensus team and leading their Series A along with NFDG and Night Capital. The consensus amongst researchers, citizen scientists, and other types of users is that they are building a game-changing product. As avid users ourselves, we encourage you to try it out for yourself and see what happens when the fragmentation of search and the acceleration of the knowledge loop collide.
