Union Square Ventures
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Underrepresented founders: apply now for Include Office Hours with USV
TechCrunch Include Office Hours are happening in NYC on September 27! Albert Wenger and Andy Weissman of Union Square Ventures will join TechCrunch to provide valuable advice and feedback to startups. Launched in 2014, Include is TechCrunch’s diversity program, aimed at facilitating opportunities for underrepresented groups in tech to take their startups to the next level. The Office… Read More
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Crunch Network
USV’s Albert Wenger on converting our attitude on automation from foe to friend
The zero marginal cost of information is turning everything upside down. Albert Wenger, Partner at Union Square Ventures asserts in our latest interview, “We are just at the beginning of this inversion.” Although the changes this inversion is bringing to many associated industries like traditional publishers, crowdfunding sites, and biotech companies are still in their infancy… Read More
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Mediachain enivisions a blockchain-based tool for identifying artists’ work across the internet
Content (in all its forms) is increasingly both the commodity and currency of the digital era, but the speed and ease of near-instantaneous global communication and a capacity for infinite reproduction has served to make it easier to sever the work from its creator. Brooklyn-based Mediachain is hoping to change that. Read More
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Crunch Network
INNOVATE2016: Why the internet has failed and how to fix it
Power now resides with massive centralizing corporations like Google and Facebook and thus the Internet no longer reflects the interests of its users. So, the digital revolution has pretty much failed, according to Union Square Ventures partner Albert Wenger. But not all is lost. Wenger has a three part solution to fix the future – all of which rests of putting power back into the hands… Read More
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Fred Wilson and Tim Armstrong say policy matters for New York’s tech growth
Against a backdrop of a New York investment scene that’s been long on promise and press and somewhat lacking in terms of exits, tech icons Fred Wilson, co-founder of Union Square Ventures, and Tim Armstrong, (my boss’ boss’ boss) chief executive of AOL, have come together to launch Tech:NYC, a new lobbying group for the technology community in New York. While Wilson conceded… Read More
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LPs are feeling the pressure of startups not finding exits
All the energy for venture funds flows from LPs — the money goes from LPs to partners at funds, which in turn invest in startups. But since the number of IPOs and exits has started to dry up, the pressure is starting to rise on LPs, and Venture Investment Associates’ Chris Douvos knows it. And he made it abundantly clear to investors on a panel at TechCrunch Disrupt NY… Read More
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USV sticks to basics with a $166.8 million early-stage fund
Even in an uncertain market, top venture firms seem to have no trouble locking down huge capital commitments from their investors. This week, Accel announced $2 billion in funding. Last week, Lightspeed Venture Partners announced $1.2 billion across two new funds. GGV Capital is meanwhile raising two funds totaling more than $1 billion. Union Square Ventures, the New York-based venture… Read More
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Jobbatical, the marketplace for tech gigs abroad, scores $2M led by USV and LocalGlobe
Jobbatical, the Estonia-headquartered job matching site for tech gigs abroad, has raised a $2 million funding round led by Union Square Ventures, and Saul Klein and Robin Klein’s LocalGlobe. Previous investor Smartcap also participated. Read More
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RealtyShares Raises $20 Million For Its Real Estate Investment Marketplace
Less than a year after it closed a $10 million round of financing, the real estate investment marketplace RealtyShares has managed to rake in another $20 million for its funding platform. The San Francisco-based company has raised over $130 million for over 1600 properties through 290 since its launch, which the company says makes it one of the largest real estate investment platforms in the U.S. Read More
Latest Crunch Report
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You Misunderstand Foursquare. It’s comScore, Not Instagram
Foursquare is not a consumer social app business, it’s a data company. And only when it admitted that to itself and revalued as such was it able to pull in more capital and keep chugging. Today at LA’s Upfront Summit, Foursquare’s lead investor from Union Square Ventures Fred Wilson stuck up for the startup while trying to make people understand how it’s… Read More
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Period Tracker App Clue Gets $7M To Build A Platform For Female Health
Berlin-based Clue, which makes a period tracker app designed to let women keep tabs on their monthly cycles and help predict their fertile window, has closed a $7 million Series A round, with investment from New York’s Union Square Ventures and London-based Series A fund Mosaic Ventures. The new round brings Clue’s total raised to-date to $10 million. Read More
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‘La Ruche Qui Dit Oui’ Scores $9 Million From USV And Felix Capital For Its Local Food Marketplace
Forget about your supermarket and buy directly from your local farmers and foodmakers. French startup La Ruche qui dit oui (also known as The Food Assembly in the U.K.) has been making waves in its home country for a while now. But it seems like international investors also got the word as Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures and Frédéric Court from Felix Capital are leading a $9… Read More
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Duolingo Raises $45 Million Series D Round Led By Google Capital, Now Valued At $470M
Duolingo, the free language learning service co-founded by reCAPTCHA inventor Luis von Ahn, today announced that it has raised a $45 million investment round led by Google Capital. The company’s previous investors, which include the likes of Union Square Ventures, NEA and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as well as Ashton Kutcher and Tim Ferris, also participated in this round. Read More
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A Cold, Dark, East London Cinema Witnesses Techstars London Demo Day
Techstars has had a fast 3 years in Europe. After Techstars London, led by the departing Jon Bradford, had been set up, it opened a further three programmes: in Berlin, the Techstars Metro Accelerator (around retail) and a fintec accelerator sponsored by Barclays Bank. Techstars London Demo Day today saw over 1,000 people signed up (the majority of whom actually turned up to a rented East… Read More
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Fred Wilson On The New York Startup Scene And Why Too Much Money Is “The Root Of All Evil”
When Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson took the stage today at TechCrunch’s Disrupt New York conference, he elaborated on a recent blog post about “the valuation trap” and argued that “too much money is the root of all evil.” Wilson’s post was actually a response to an article in TechCrunch about the challenges Square and Box seem to be facing. Read More
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VC Fred Wilson: By 2020 Apple Won’t Be A Top-3 Tech Company, Google And Facebook Will
Fred Wilson of New York’s Union Square Ventures, one of the top tech investors around, believes that by 2020, the biggest tech company in the world — Apple — will cease to be the most important, and won’t even be in the top three. Read More
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CloudFlare Reveals $50M Round From Union Square Ventures
In what is quite possibly a move to bolster valuation ahead of raising a new round,CloudFlare has revealed that it raised a $50 million Series C in December of 2012, according to CEO and co-founder Matthew Prince. In case you’re unfamiliar with CloudFlare, it’s a service for website owners that offers protection from online threats, speeds up page load time, and optimizes… Read More
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The Football App Scores $7M Led By Union Square Ventures As It Preps For World Cup 2014
There’s big money in football (or “soccer” as some TC readers like to say). And so it follows that there’s money to be made in corresponding apps that let fans engross themselves with the beautiful game. To that end, Berlin-headquartered The Football App has raised a further round of funding: $7 million led by New York-based Union Square Ventures (previous backer of… Read More
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Union Square Ventures Adds Hacker News-Like Link Sharing Community To Newly Designed Site
Union Square Ventures, the New York-based VC firm that has backed Twitter, Foursquare, Etsy, Zynga and many others, has debuted a newly redesigned website today. A VC firm launching a new site isn’t usually big news, but in this case, USV has added an interesting new sharing community that draws comparisons to Y Combinator’s Hacker News. Read More
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