Portfolio Companies
14Gritt
Infrastructure robotics company deploying robots for grid-scale solar array construction and maintenance.
Pascal
Prediction market exchange built for traders, led by Union Square Ventures. Launched in private beta with 2M+ organic contracts processed.
Generalist
Foundational robotics models company with GEN-1 model achieving 99% success rates. USV investment announced.
Suno
AI music generation platform enabling non-musicians to create finished music. Series D financing with USV participation.
Anon
Platform providing user agent infrastructure for AI applications to programmatically access sites and services on behalf of users, handling authentication and account management.
Flow
Flow raises $725M to fund blockchain's growth and development initiatives.
Efficient Computer
Creating energy-efficient general-purpose processors (Electron E1 chip) for AI, edge computing, and physical world applications using Fabric architecture.
Forerunner
Forerunner secures $39 million funding round
Tutor Intelligence
AI-powered warehouse robot workers platform raises Series A to scale operations
Somos Internet
Somos Internet raised $18M in Series A funding
The Clearing Company
The Clearing Company raised $15M in seed funding
Ephemera
Crypto messaging app raises $20M Series B at $300M valuation
Volteras
Volteras raises $11.1M in Series A funding
Ghost
Ghost raised Series A funding led by Union Square Ventures
Recent Articles
30Obliterate, Don’t Automate
Union Square Ventures revisits a framework first articulated by partner Fred Wilson in 2015, rooted in a 1990 Harvard Business Review essay by Michael Hammer. USV's investment thesis favors startups that do not merely digitize or automate existing market processes, but fundamentally disrupt and rebuild them from the ground up. The post notes this "obliterate, don't automate" principle remains a defining filter in USV's current assessment of prospective portfolio companies, distinguishing transformative ventures fr…
7/22/2026
Gritt
Union Square Ventures has announced an investment in Gritt, a robotics company focused on automating the construction of grid-scale solar arrays. Gritt has already deployed robots on tens of megawatts of installations and has secured contracts covering 2.8 gigawatts of future work from major U.S. construction firms. USV frames the investment around a broader thesis that robotics is expanding from controlled factory environments into complex outdoor infrastructure settings, addressing critical labor shortages in en…
7/21/2026
Pascal
Union Square Ventures outlines its bullish view on prediction markets, which have grown rapidly over the past two years. USV argues that prediction markets extend well beyond sports betting, offering value through information aggregation, improved forecasting accuracy, and more efficient pricing that can support real-economy hedging. The firm cites Kalshi, which navigated years of regulatory challenges to offer U.S. event contracts, and Polymarket, which built a large global user base, as proof that the category h…
7/16/2026
Data At The Edge
Union Square Ventures has published an investment thesis arguing that affordable hardware and edge AI are unlocking data loops in the physical world—covering environments, human activity, and infrastructure—that software alone could never reach. USV has already backed companies across robotics, sensor networks, and edge computing, including Tutor Intelligence, Sofar Ocean, Viam, and Efficient Computer. The firm signals additional unannounced investments are forthcoming, targeting infrastructure monitoring, weather…
7/8/2026
Alqem
Union Square Ventures has backed Alqem, a startup applying AI to accelerate the discovery of new materials. The potential materials space is effectively infinite—combining even a small subset of elements at varying ratios yields billions of candidates—yet humanity has synthesized only a tiny fraction to date, largely through trial and error. Alqem uses AI's ability to detect structure in high-dimensional spaces to navigate this vast landscape more efficiently, aiming to unlock novel materials that traditional brut…
7/6/2026
The Rebel Alliance
Union Square Ventures published a post titled "The Rebel Alliance," though the publicly available excerpt is limited in detail. Based on the title and USV's established pattern of publishing perspective pieces on technology, markets, and portfolio themes, the post appears to articulate a contrarian or independent viewpoint on industry dynamics. The cautious read is that USV is signaling a thematic investment or cultural stance, but the full argument requires reading the complete post directly on the USV website.
6/25/2026
Consumer Rebellion
Union Square Ventures argues that intensifying competition at the AI model layer — from both closed frontier models and rapidly advancing open-source alternatives — is enabling a new generation of agentic consumer applications to emerge independent of dominant incumbents. USV's thesis centers on a "rebel alliance" of open tools, orchestrators, and harnesses that give independent builders compounding advantages. The firm sees a significant opportunity for breakout consumer apps and platforms built on this open stac…
6/23/2026
Fomo
6/22/2026
Generalist
USV announces investment in Generalist, a robotics company whose GEN-1 model achieves 99% success rates at 3x speed, up from 64%. Foundational robotics models are entering a scaling law era, enabling faster task-specific training with less data.
6/4/2026
Suno
USV joins Suno's Series D funding. Suno has revolutionized music creation with AI, enabling non-musicians to make music easily. Unlike YouTube or TikTok, users create music purely for fun—a new behavior called 'creative entertainment.'
6/3/2026
Board
An article titled 'Board' published by Union Square Ventures, discussing topics related to board governance or board membership in the context of venture capital and startups.
6/2/2026
USV Analyst Program 2026
5/28/2026
Our Investment in Anon
A16z invests in Anon, a startup restoring user agency online. Anon provides infrastructure for AI apps to access sites on behalf of users without open APIs, handling authentication, security, and account management via an embeddable SDK.
5/28/2026
USV Analyst Program 2026: Heads Up
Union Square Ventures announces a heads up regarding their Analyst Program for 2026, signaling an upcoming opportunity for prospective candidates interested in joining the venture capital firm.
5/12/2026
Glif
Glif v2 is an AI creative orchestration agent that selects models, applies learned techniques, and manages production pipelines based on insights from millions of creator workflows, becoming a personalized creative partner over time.
4/23/2026
Joining Union Square Ventures
The author shares their journey from pitching USV for their podcasting startup Anchor to joining the firm, highlighting USV's collegial culture, deep curiosity, and reputation among founders and LPs.
4/14/2026
Welcoming Mike Mignano to the USV Partnership
USV welcomes Mike Mignano as a new partner. Known for founding Anchor and later joining Lightspeed, Mike is valued for his idea-driven, early-stage investment approach, curiosity, and passion for exploring what's next.
4/14/2026
Tasklet
Union Square Ventures published a post about Tasklet, suggesting an investment or notable interest in this venture or product related to task management or productivity.
4/7/2026
Modeling The AGI Economy
Explores the debate between pessimistic and optimistic views of AGI's economic impact, arguing that competitive markets and income redistribution policies are both crucial for ensuring broad participation in an AI-driven economy.
3/26/2026
Meet the Agents at USV: Arthur, Ellie, Sally, and Friends
USV explores how AI agents enable custom software development, drawing parallels to MIT's adaptable Building 20. Teams like Stripe, Ramp, and Coinbase are creating internal coding agents to fit their workflows.
3/25/2026
AI Bubble or Not?
While AI shows bubble-like valuations similar to dotcom era, it differs with unlimited demand and recursive self-improvement potential. The real challenge isn't demand but unit economics, as companies subsidize tokens heavily.
3/24/2026
Flow Raises $725M To Fund Blockchain’s Growth - Blockworks
Flow blockchain platform secures $725 million in funding to accelerate its growth and development in the blockchain ecosystem.
3/14/2026
History Rhymes?
History shows a pattern: new technologies start with closed "walled gardens" controlled by few players, but open protocols eventually emerge and win due to permissionless innovation creating more experiments and possibilities.
3/13/2026
The Future of Programmable Everything Runs on Efficient Energy: Efficient Computer’s Series A
USV invests in Efficient Computer, whose Electron E1 chip offers unprecedented energy efficiency for general-purpose computing, enabling new AI applications in physical world scenarios previously limited by power constraints.
2/18/2026
Forerunner Secures $39 Million Funding Round - The SaaS News
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2/9/2026
Automated Software: Some Implications
The author traces their coding journey from calculators to modern AI-assisted programming, arguing we've entered an era where software creation is faster and easier through natural language prompting, leading to more software creation but lower profit margins.
2/8/2026
As Silicon Alley turns 30, New York is building its own tech mecca - Fortune
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2/2/2026
The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report: 12/8/25 - AlleyWatch
AlleyWatch's weekly report covering notable startup funding rounds and investment activities for the week ending December 8, 2025.
12/8/2025
Tutor Intelligence raises $34M to scale fleet of AI-powered warehouse robots - SiliconANGLE
Tutor Intelligence secured $34 million in funding to expand their AI-powered warehouse robotics fleet, focusing on scaling automated warehouse solutions for improved logistics efficiency.
12/1/2025
Tutor Intelligence Raises $34 Million Series A to Scale Its AI-Powered Fleet of Warehouse Robot Workers - Business Wire
Tutor Intelligence secures $34 million in Series A funding to expand its AI-powered warehouse robotics fleet, aimed at scaling automated warehouse operations and robot worker deployment.
12/1/2025
Investment Signals
20USV uses the 'Obliterate, Don't Automate' principle as a defining characteristic in their startup assessment methodology, suggesting a preference for transformative over incremental innovation.
USV's investment thesis favors companies that fundamentally transform markets rather than simply automating existing processes. They seek startups that obliterate old business models entirely rather than incrementally improving them.
Robotics technology is advancing to solve large-scale infrastructure challenges including solar array construction and maintenance of aging infrastructure systems.
Infrastructure maintenance and construction represents a major civilizational challenge addressable through robotics transitioning from controlled factory environments to complex outdoor infrastructure conditions.
Union Square Ventures invested in Gritt, a robotics company automating grid-scale solar array construction with deployed robots handling tens of megawatts and 2.8 gigawatts in contracted projects.
Prediction markets have grown rapidly over 24 months and become embedded in social/economic fabric, with potential to extend far beyond sports betting.
Prediction markets are in early innings with room for multiple large players; later entrants with novel approaches can capture significant market share by serving underserved segments.
Union Square Ventures led Series A financing for Pascal, a prediction market exchange built for professional traders with focus on superior UX, API quality, and capital efficiency.
Reinforcement learning in robotics is advancing rapidly, transitioning from learning to reinforcement learning to continuous learning models that improve as they interact with physical environments.
Physical world data opportunities are enabling previously impossible use cases like infrastructure observability, weather modeling, and autonomous transportation at new economic scales.
Portfolio companies Generalist, Tutor Intelligence, Sofar Ocean, Viam, and Efficient Computer are enabling the physical world data flywheel through robotics, sensor infrastructure, and edge computing.
USV is investing across the physical world data stack including robotics, sensor networks, and edge AI infrastructure with several unannounced investments to come.
Data loops are forming in physical world applications through converging forces of abundant intelligence, cheaper hardware, and ubiquitous sensors, creating market-shifting opportunities in robotics, infrastructure monitoring, and autonomous systems.
Explosive demand for electric motors and actuators driven by electric vehicle adoption and billions of robots requires breakthrough materials innovation in magnet manufacturing.
AI's ability to discover structures in high-dimensional spaces enables discovery of novel materials across vast chemical composition spaces that are computationally intractable for humans.
Union Square Ventures backed Alqem, an AI-driven materials discovery company developing rare-earth-free magnetic materials for electric motors and actuators.
USV believes small, nimble builders with fresh ideas can outcompete large incumbents in consumer AI applications despite their resources and organizational advantages.
Agentic consumer applications and experiences are emerging as a major opportunity driven by open-source competition, new developer toolkits, and high consumer appetite for novel AI-powered tools.
USV believes open-source model competition and alternative toolkits enable independent builders to create breakout agentic consumer applications outside incumbent control.
AI platforms are enabling a new participatory creativity trend where the barrier between imagination and creation becomes nearly zero across multiple mediums.