Venture capital firm USV announces raising $900 million new fund, will increase investment in AI, robotics, and other sectors.

October 9: Venture capital firm Union Square Ventures (USV) announced the launch of a new $900 million fund, focused on supporting innovative startups in large markets driven by technological change. USV said that AI infrastructure buildout is accelerating, AI tools are enabling entrepreneurs to turn ideas into actual products within days and deploy AI agent teams at lower cost, but product competition has also intensified as a result. To this end, USV expanded its investment team, adding Anchor co-founder Michael Mignano as general partner, GroupMe co-founder Jared Hecht as venture partner, and Behance co-founder and former Adobe chief product officer Scott Belsky as product advisory partner.

USV's previous core fund was $275 million, and this new fund is a significant expansion. The firm said AI has lowered the barriers to product development while also driving up the financing needs of high-quality startups, the size of funding rounds, and valuations, making it necessary to deploy more capital to lead more funding rounds, extend the support period for portfolio companies, and expand into areas with higher capital needs such as robotics, manufacturing, and energy. However, USV plans to maintain roughly the same number of investments as previous funds, continuing to adhere to an investment-thesis-driven approach and focusing on companies' business models, teams, and products.

In terms of investment strategy, USV proposed four core directions: using AI to fundamentally reshape existing markets rather than merely improving the efficiency of traditional businesses; investing in related software, robotics, manufacturing, and sensor networks by acquiring previously hard-to-reach offline data through physical intelligence and AI; supporting intelligent products that can achieve better alignment of interests in areas such as trust, security, memory capabilities, and cost; and increasing investment in the energy sector by integrating energy investments previously deployed since 2021 through a dedicated fund into the core fund. USV said its investment logic continues the concept of positioning around internet infrastructure in 2004, and now it is placing key bets on artificial intelligence and intelligent technology, looking for companies expected to use them to reshape large markets.