Union Square Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests at the edge of large markets being transformed by technological and societal pressures. The firm operates as a small, collegial partnership with a consistent point of view across sectors, maintaining relatively small fund sizes to foster alignment with entrepreneurs. USV manages three distinct strategies: Core (early-stage), Opportunity (later-stage), and Climate (early-stage climate), all invested by the same team. This structure allows the firm to focus on startups that invent new forms of opportunity and solve important problems in new ways.
USV published a new post arguing that the AI opportunity will be won by a broad ecosystem around the agentic stack, not a single vertically integrated company. The piece lays out the layers USV is focused on, including orchestration, memory, identity, and payments.
USV published a companion post saying the current AI shift creates room for breakout consumer apps and agentic experiences. It emphasizes that increased model competition and better tooling are opening a window for new products.
