

Timeline of Union Square Ventures' investments - guiseppecalzone
http://www.usv.com/timeline3/#stage

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xoail
I could recognize 80% of the companies in their portfolio. I guess that makes
them pretty good at spotting good companies for investments. Comparing from
the fact that generally when I see a VC firms' portfolio I could hardly
recognize 50% of the companies. This could also mean they are taking less
risks than usual.

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rdl
I think that metric works a lot better for seed investors vs. series B/C.

There's a trick a lot of the newer or mediocre investors do -- put tiny
amounts into popular late-stage financings of known winners, just so the
investor can claim "we were an investor in all these great companies."

Picking a great company at seed stage is harder. If you could have a seed-only
portfolio where in 5 years someone knows even 50% of the companies
(positively; not talking about investing in adelphia, etc.), you're doing
amazingly well.

Based on yclist, I'd say YC, one of the better seed-stage investors, is
probably around 10-15% by that metric, assuming none of the YC companies not
on yc list are "known".

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rdl
Is that a comprehensive list, or just selected good investments in retrospect?

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nerfhammer
Certain failed investments I'm familiar with are not present in the timeline.

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brianwatson
Which ones? (I'm one of the dudes who made it.)

Everything that's on the USV "Investments page" should be on the timeline.
<http://www.usv.com/investments/>

There are a few cases in which companies pivoted, so we just listed the new
thing (i.e. Hashable to YieldMo)

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PhrosTT
Seed shares of Tumblr... I'd like some please.

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tannerc
You and about 13.4 million other people
(<http://mashable.com/2011/08/31/tumblr-record-uniques/>)

