Top Hat Raises $22.5M Series C in a Tough Vertical: What Can We Learn from their Success
Our portfolio company Top Hat just closed a $22.5M (USD) Series C round. Union Square Ventures – one of our favorite co-investors – added to Top Hat’s existing investors and USV’s Albert Wenger joined their Board of Directors. This funding is big news, particularly since 2016 was a weak year for Ed Tech funding. Generally […]
My next chapter of VC: More data!
On the heels of being named principal last week, I am humbled by Boris’s announcement and thrilled to begin leading deals for Version One. While many of you have already worked with me directly or read my thoughts on this blog over the years, I want to take the opportunity to share my goals: what I’m […]
Congratulations to Angela Tran Kingyens, our newest Principal
Out of all the posts I’ve written over the years, this one gives me the greatest pleasure. I am thrilled to announce that my colleague of over three years, Angela Tran Kingyens, has been promoted to Principal. In this new role Angela will start leading deals for Version One and this will obviously increase our […]
Revisiting the Engagement Pyramid
Back in 2014, I blogged about building a user engagement pyramid for social platforms, inspired by Fred Wilson’s 100/10/1 rule. The premise of that post was simple: since user-generated content is king, the top of the pyramid (aka the most engaged users) are those who post status updates, photos and links. And, these creators are inspired when […]
Announcing our investment in Blockstack, The New Decentralized Internet
This is an exciting time for cryptocurrencies. As we recently wrote in Cryptocurrency’s Second Act, the rise of Ethereum revealed that cryptocurrency is not a winner-takes-all market. It has evolved from a sole player with a limited use case into an ecosystem with at least two cryptocurrencies at scale, and many others trying to get […]