Writing
Choose
Parallel Markets
John Buttrick – Feb 3, 2022
In 2015, we invested in Carta (FKA eShares) and wrote, “Anyone who owns shares or options in a private company instinctively knows that cap table management remains frustratingly analog…The collection and management of this information is a thankless task but [...] Read more
ADDI
John Buttrick – May 26, 2021
Co-authored by Hanel Baveja While we are not the first to point this out, access to capital in Latin America remains a massive challenge. Financial infrastructure and tools are concentrated on the top earners, excluding the majority of the population [...] Read more
alt.bank
John Buttrick – May 4, 2021
For most of USV’s history, we focused on investments in North America and Europe. We are a small firm and there was more than enough opportunity in these regions. We also gravitated towards companies where it would be relatively easy [...] Read more
CoverWallet, now an Aon company
John Buttrick – Jan 13, 2020
Last week CoverWallet, one of our portfolio companies, was acquired by Aon, one of the world’s leading companies focused on insurance. CoverWallet was launched in early 2016 by its co-founders Inaki and Rashmi to reinvent commercial insurance by leveraging technology, [...] Read more
Juro
John Buttrick – Jan 7, 2020
When I was at law school in a prior life, Contracts was one of my favorite classes. The cases were filled with colorful stories of people who thought they had an agreement but didn’t, or ended up with an agreement [...] Read more
Patch Homes, A Modern Finance Company
John Buttrick – Sep 12, 2019
In 2006 my friends Mia and Andre (pseudonyms) bought their dream garden apartment in Harlem for $500K. They had rented in New York for a decade and bought the apartment expecting to make it their home indefinitely. They initially financed [...] Read more
Carta Act III
John Buttrick – May 6, 2019
In October 2014 we were fortunate to lead the Series A financing in a company then called eshares. At that point the company was offering cap table management services for private companies in the cloud, at the time a novel idea. About [...] Read more
Upgrade
John Buttrick – Apr 6, 2017
In July 2011, we were fortunate to lead the Series D financing round in Lending Club, founded in 2006 by Renaud Laplanche. Along with Zopa (UK company) and Prosper, Lending Club was a pioneer of the now-familiar marketplace lending model, which cut interest costs for high quality borrowers by as much as 50% (not a typo) and at the same time offered investors attractive risk-adjusted returns not available elsewhere. This was a fundamental innovation in financial services that is thriving globally and will continue to gain in importance. Read more
Hillary Clinton for President
Brad Burnham , Fred Wilson , Andy Weissman , John Buttrick and Albert Wenger – Oct 4, 2016
This is the fourth presidential election during the existence of Union Square Ventures and the first one in which we as a firm feel compelled to endorse a candidate: Hillary Clinton. As investors in technology companies, we believe that technology [...] Read more