USV’s New $900M Fund: Fred Wilson, Rebecca Kaden & Mike Mignano

Michael Mignano (0:00)

We raised $900 million in new funds for USV, which is by far the most USV has ever raised in a new fund cycle.

Fred Wilson (0:08)

I don't think a trillion is what we need to underwrite to at USV. I think if our biggest winners are in the single-digit billions, given our fund size and our ownership, we can produce really, really healthy returns for our partners. There have been some outliers at $50 billion or $100 billion, but a lot of our biggest winners are in the $10 billion range, and that's produced enormous returns for us.

Rebecca Kaden (0:30)

It's also a bigger number than we've raised before, somewhat significantly, and marks a new strategy for us. The market has evolved. The outcomes are bigger. The swings are bigger. I was a little surprised how many of them said, are you serious?

Molly O'Shea (0:53)

We are here at Union Square Ventures, USV, in New York City with Mike Mignano, and we're about to go on a bit of an office tour. After that, there's more.

We're going to do a sit down with Fred Wilson, Rebecca Kaden, and Mike to go over what we're about to announce.

Michael Mignano (1:11)

We just raised a new fund. We raised $900 million in new funds for USV, which is, I would say, by far the most USV has ever raised in a new fund cycle, but there's a reason for that, and I think we will get into that in a little bit.

Molly O'Shea (1:25)

So why not $1 billion?

Michael Mignano (1:27)

Oh, well, you know, we're... I would say with USV, we have always been extremely intentional about fund strategy, not just fund size, but fund composition, how many companies, roughly what size checks do we plan to write, stages, number of companies. And so the 900 really comes from that strategy and that model.

We don't raise funds as vanity metrics. It's not like we gotta hit a billion or we gotta hit two billion.

Molly O'Shea (1:56)

I wanna be a unicorn fund.

Michael Mignano (1:58)

The 900 really comes from the strategy, bottoms up, which again, I think we'll probably get into, right?

Molly O'Shea (2:04)

Yeah, okay, so maybe we can do what you do best and we can walk backwards to hide all the equipment.

Michael Mignano (2:10)

Okay.

Molly O'Shea (2:10)

And then we can pick it up around the corner.

Michael Mignano (2:12)

Sure, let's do it.

Molly O'Shea (2:13)

All right, so we are here at Union Square. We're gonna walk into the kitchen. These are some main areas. It's very active today.

Michael Mignano (2:20)

Lots of people here today. Yeah, this is, I don't know, a bit of a seating, living room area. Obviously, we've got the kitchen.

My favorite feature of this kitchen is this X-Bloom pour-over machine. Have you seen this thing?

Molly O'Shea (2:34)

No, what is this?

Michael Mignano (2:35)

It's basically a pour-over robot. So if you like pour over coffee, this is a robot that makes that for you.

Molly O'Shea (2:41)

Is this an investment?

Michael Mignano (2:42)

I don't know. It's not. But it's really cool. I've seen these in a few offices, couple of startup offices, couple of VC offices. So it's not like USV is the only place that has this, but if you like coffee, it's pretty good.

Molly O'Shea (2:54)

It's cool. I've never seen that.

Michael Mignano (2:56)

Yeah, we've got a little bit of a dining room table here. We've got a board, one of our portfolio companies, board. Do you know board?

Molly O'Shea (3:03)

No, what is this?

Michael Mignano (3:04)

Board is the world's first tabletop gaming console, founded by Britton Putnam, who founded Mirror.

Rebecca Kaden (3:11)

Oh yeah.

Michael Mignano (3:12)

This is an amazing product. Every game comes with its own set of pieces, unique pieces that the screen reacts to.

They also have a platform to make it really, really easy for developers to build games for this. It's an awesome product. I would definitely recommend.

Molly O'Shea (3:28)

Do you play chess on this?

Michael Mignano (3:29)

They don't have chess.

Molly O'Shea (3:30)

They don't?

Michael Mignano (3:32)

They have all their own games.

You gotta make it square. Well, I guess you could do chess where you shave off the edges.

Rebecca Kaden (3:37)

Smaller? Yeah.

Michael Mignano (3:38)

But it's awesome. Highly recommend. This is what we call the pit.

Molly O'Shea (3:44)

The pit.

Michael Mignano (3:46)

So the pit is where we all work and we all hang out. This is my desk. It's very cluttered. I hope you don't get a shot of it.