Getting Together In Person

Last week we held USV’s annual Portfolio Summit here in NYC. Every year we invite the leaders of our portfolio companies to come to NYC and spend a couple of days with us and each other. However, we were not able to do that in 2020 and 2021 so this was our first Portfolio Summit since 2019.

In the three years that have passed since our last summit, we roughly doubled the size of our portfolio, adding 65 new investments. That is 65 founders and leaders that had not been to a USV Summit, and in some cases, we had not met them in person.

This is a photo of folks arriving on the first day and settling in:

There is nothing particularly interesting about that photo. Most of us have been to these sorts of business affairs countless times. Except that we have not been able to do it for the last two years.

I have always felt like our two-day Portfolio Summit is my favorite work event of the year. And I had not realized how much I had missed it. It is so great to see everyone together in person, sharing experiences and ideas with each other and building relationships.

We learned some new tricks over the last two years. Those of us who work in VC and startups can work remotely and get most everything we need done. But we have to remember the power of being together and do more of it. It really makes a difference.