Union Square Ventures
13 investors say lifelong learning is taking edtech mainstream
The venture potential of a startup that caters to individual students — instead of a slow-moving, small-pocketed institution — has a bullish aura that attracts investors. Add in a pandemic that fo
SilviaTerra wants to bring the benefits of carbon offsets to every landowner everywhere
Zack Parisa and Max Nova, the co-founders of the carbon offset company SilviaTerra, have spent the last decade working on a way to democratize access to revenue-generating carbon offsets. As forestry
Union Square Ventures and Learn Capital file paperwork indicating new funds
As 2020 comes to a long-awaited end, a series of filings indicate that venture capitalists are ending the year with fresh money. According to SEC paperwork, Learn Capital and USV have filed paperwork
Jam raises $3.5 million to Figma-tize product collaboration
The web of collaboration apps invading remote work toolkits have led to plenty of messy workflows for teams that communicate in a language of desktop screenshots and DMs. Tracing a suggestion or flagg
With $2.7M in fresh funding, Sora hopes to bring virtual high school to the mainstream
Long before the coronavirus, Sora, a startup run by a team of Atlanta entrepreneurs, was toying with the idea of live, virtual high school. The program would focus on student autonomy and organize its
Dr. Seuss comes to the blockchain thanks to the maker of CryptoKitties
From CryptoKitties to the NBA, Dapper Labs has paved the way for blockchain popularity beyond speculation that’s purely monetary and now with Dr. Seuss Enterprises another collectible applicatio
Assessing the potential for a gig economy in education
The potential for advances in online learning to enable personalized learning experiences, both in terms of newer platforms and apps that help assess domain-specific knowledge, are much broader than w
8 edtech investors talk re-skilling, digital universities, ISAs and other post-pandemic trends
We know that the coronavirus has brought unprecedented attention to the edtech market, but now what? What happens when schools are no longer clambering toward an overnight solution? When the surges sl
DroneBase nabs $7.5 million in a slight down round to double down on its work in renewable energy
DroneBase, a Los Angeles-based provider of drone pilots for industrial services companies, has raised $7.5 million during the pandemic to double down on its work with renewable energy companies. While
What to consider before publishing your diversity memo
In the past few weeks, several venture capital firms have published different variations of the same pledge: we’ll do a better job supporting the Black community. My timeline, and I’m assuming you
Listen to our midweek chat with USV’s Albert Wenger
Earlier this week TechCrunch caught up with Union Square Ventures‘ (USV) Albert Wenger. Wenger, a managing partner at the venture firm, is well-known in the New York startup scene. USV has inves
TechCrunch Live: Join USV Managing Director Albert Wenger for a live chat Thursday at 9am PDT
Startups big and small, across all industries, are affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic. From Etsy to MongoDB, from Twilio to Foursquare, these companies are looking for ways to capitalize and u
Arweave’s permaweb stops coronavirus censorship, raises $8M
The Chinese government has been removing criticism of its coronavirus response from apps like Weibo, the local equivalent of Twitter. But before it can, that content is being saved, decentralized and
Facebook’s Libra Association adds crypto prime broker Tagomi
TechCrunch has learned that $28 million-funded crypto startup Tagomi will be the newest member of the Libra Association that governs the Facebook-backed Libra stablecoin. A formal announcement is slat
Codecademy has already outlived many rivals — is that enough?
Codecademy, the New York-based online interactive platform that offers coding classes in a wide variety of programming languages, is a little like background noise; it’s been operating reliably
VCs to antitrust officials: We’d rather take our chances
Last week at Stanford, antitrust officials from the U.S. Department of Justice organized a day-long conference that engaged numerous venture capitalists in conversations about big tech. The DOJ wanted
Top Hat raises $55M Series D for its higher ed learning platform
Toronto-based Top Hat, a company that makes a number of software tools for teachers in higher education, today announced that it has raised a $55 million Series D funding round co-ed by Georgian Partn
Union Square Ventures leads legal tech startup Juro’s $5M Series A
Juro, a UK startup that’s using machine learning tech and user-centric design to do for contracts what Typeform does for online forms, has caught the eye of Union Square Ventures. The New York-b
Dutch startup Meatable is developing lab-grown pork and has $10 million in new financing to do it
Meatable, the Dutch startup developing cruelty-free technologies for manufacturing cultured meat, is pivoting to pork production as a swine flu epidemic ravages one quarter of the world’s pork s
A look at the top trends exciting NYC’s consumer VCs
To learn more about the next wave of consumer startup investment outside Silicon Valley, I’m speaking to leading B2C-focused investors in various hubs about the trends they’re excited about ri