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Jan 24, 2023

The state of mental health in the US is abysmal. 1 in 5 American adults report suffering from mental illness–and nearly 1 in 3 between 18 and 25. A core piece of our thesis at USV focuses on broadening access Read more

Mar 21, 2022

Fertility treatment today is largely a blunt object approach to a highly personal moment. It begins with a one size fits most process designed to be adjusted on the edges over a series of cycles–for most women, 3-5. The good Read more

Feb 7, 2022

A core piece of USV’s thesis has long been around an enablement layer – the idea that horizontal tooling is essential to support growing ecosystems that sit on top. That belief has led to investments like Twilio, Shippo, Sift, Clarifai, Read more

Apr 16, 2021

Co-authored by Hannah Murdoch The language of commerce has always been visual.  Tiffany’s published their Blue Book in 1845, the first direct-mail catalogue in the United States.  The publication distributed pages of the world’s finest jewels to customers who couldn’t reach Read more

Feb 10, 2021

The trucking industry is one of the oldest and most interesting in the US. It is also one I’ve always been fascinated by--partly because, for a couple of generations, it was where my family made their living. My paternal great Read more

Oct 1, 2020

Co-authored by Hannah Murdoch USV’s education portfolio is built around the idea of changing a system from the outside in. By going directly to learners with products and platforms that offer high quality experiences for free or at accessible price Read more

Sep 18, 2020

In the post about USV’s initial investment in Outschool 16 months ago, I wrote about the dramatic need for innovation in an education system that looked effectively the same as it did 50 years ago. While the internet had altered Read more

Feb 7, 2020

We have recently gotten excited about several new emerging social networks and platforms. While the competition for prolonged attention only gets fiercer and the network effects in the dominant players remain strong, there is also fresh consumer appetite for creative Read more

Nov 18, 2019

10 years ago, in March 2009, USV hosted an event called Hacking Education. The team pulled together a group of operators, founders, and investors to talk about how to create transformation in education. Following the event, my partner Brad wrote Read more