Silly Money

Today, I’m excited to announce something I've been quietly working toward for a while…

I'm joining USVC as a General Partner, and Naval Ravikant is joining me as the Chairman of our Investment Committee.

USVC is a new financial product by AngelList Asset Management that provides exposure to startup investments for U.S. investors (and yes that includes non-accredited investors!) starting with as little as $500.

An investment in the fund is highly speculative, subject to loss, illiquid and may not be appropriate for all investors. For important disclosures and Fund holdings, see here: https://usvc.com/portfolio

Before I explain what USVC is and how it works in detail, I want to walk you through five trends that have shaped my thinking over the last few years because understanding why this moment is special matters more than any announcement.

Startups appear to be growing

We seem to be living through a moment of historical company building.

Cursor went from zero to $100M in annual revenue in 12 months, then $1B in 24 months. It’s one of the fastest SaaS scaling recorded.

OpenAI went from a $157B valuation to $500B in 12 months.

Anthropic tripled its valuation in six months.

xAI grew revenue five times over in the same window.

And while some may say we’re in a bubble, these growth curves aren't flukes.

They appear to be the result of a market bending convergence.

AI is collapsing the cost of software development, a generation of founders who grew up watching the last wave want in, and the capital markets are more willing than ever to fund category creation at unprecedented speed.

The companies that may define the next decade seem to be scaling faster and reaching dominance earlier than what I’ve seen in my 20 years in startups.

Some of the most exciting companies are staying private for longer

Much of the significant value creation in startups today may be occurring outside public markets, which means it can remain largely inaccessible to most investors.

What’s wild to me is that, in 1980, the median company went public at six years old.

Today it's 13 years!

These companies may be staying private more than three times longer than they did a generation ago.

And this hasn’t happened by accident. Being a public company can be expensive, every move can get a heightened level of scrutiny by analysts, journalists, and short sellers, and with the depth of private capital markets today, it may seem increasingly unnecessary.

In 2026, exciting companies can raise billions without touching public markets. So they may choose to skip the IPO, or push it years (or even a decade+) out, to see how the markets shake out.

To me, that can be a sign that institutional investors are building liquidity mechanisms within private markets if they've concluded that's where the real action is.

The period of fastest compounding (seed round through late-stage private) may be playing out almost entirely outside the reach of regular investors.

And by the time many of the companies I mentioned above touch public markets, the bulk of the compounding may have already happened.

Your index fund strategy may be growing riskier

High earners who invest in public markets may hold a broad index fund. VOO, SPY, QQQ. Take your pick.

To be clear, the logic is pretty clear for diversification, low fees, and market returns. And I’m a fan of the strategy generally.

But the issue may be that these "broad indexes" are not as broad as they used to be.

The S&P 500 is more concentrated in its top holdings than it has been in decades.

So, a meaningful slice of your diversified exposure may really just be a handful of mega-cap technology companies.

So, the index-and-wait strategy may increasingly give you concentrated exposure to yesterday's winners, while the next generation of category leaders may be being built privately.

And if you want exposure to what's being created next, not what's already been built, public markets may be offering fewer and fewer places to look.

There seems to be a rise of degen investing

For decades, the SEC used the accredited investor rule as a gate on select asset classes.

The logic was paternalistic but at least coherent: early-stage startups are risky and illiquid, so let's limit access to people wealthy enough to absorb the loss.

What nobody planned for is what happened next.

Today, a non-accredited investor can:

  • Buy Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, or any of thousands of tokens with no underlying cash flow, no governance, and no floor

  • Trade zero-day options on individual stocks

  • Bet whether two people will shake hands at a specific meeting on prediction markets

  • Pour money into leveraged ETFs that are explicitly designed to decay over time

All of that is fully accessible, and none of it requires accreditation.

But investing in private companies? No no no, that may be wayyyy too risky.

Regulations designed to protect everyday investors may have had the unintended effect of excluding many of them from private-market opportunities and returns.

It may have kept everyday investors out of the asset class that has helped generate some of the most extraordinary wealth creation in the last 30 years.

That's the real irony of the access wall, and it's why what's happening now actually matters.

The access wall may be coming down

Until very recently (and I’m talking a few months ago recently), getting meaningful exposure to early-stage venture may have often required:

  • $250,000+ minimum commitments

  • Accredited investor status

  • An established network of GP relationships

  • A willingness to lock up capital for 10-12 years

  • And multiple K-1s at tax time every year

Not much of that seems to have changed in the last 40 years for traditional private funds, and that is why I’m especially excited about USVC.

It is structured as a regulated, registered closed-end fund under the Investment Company Act.

That structure is what now enables individual investors, accredited or not, to get exposure to startup investing without the barriers that may have historically kept private markets as an institutional-only asset class.

But the data that underlies USVC is 15+ years old.

Some of the most effective managers and breakout funds operate on AngelList.

With $125 billion in assets, 4,500+ active managers and 13,000+ startups as of April 22, 2026, it’s a powerful signal network.

We use that access as a starting point, then follow the top performers as they scale.

Today, you can get exposure to venture through a regulated vehicle with transparency, a public prospectus, and institutional-grade governance.

An investment in the fund is highly speculative, subject to loss, illiquid and may not be appropriate for all investors. For important disclosures and Fund holdings, see here: usvc.com/portfolio

What is USVC

USVC is a registered investment fund by AngelList Asset Management that gives U.S. investors and their advisors exposure to venture capital, that may provide retail investors with exposure to promising companies before they become well-known.

The current portfolio includes exposure to companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Sierra, Vercel, Crusoe, and Legora, names most investors have heard of but may have rarely been able to access directly.

Here's what makes the structure interesting:

It's a registered fund, which is meaningful.

USVC operates under the Investment Company Act of 1940, the same regulatory framework as the mutual funds and ETFs in your brokerage account.

Some venture funds may not bother with registration - perhaps due to cost and complexity. However, USVC

is a registered fund with a public prospectus, audited financials, SEC oversight, and (significantly) the ability to accept investments from any U.S. investor, regardless of accreditation status.

Three differentiated ways the fund finds investments.

Venture funds may have often done one thing: write checks into early-stage companies and hope for the best. USVC invests in venture capital directly, through funds, and through special purpose vehicles and takes a more deliberate approach across three sourcing strategies.

The first is secondary and direct investments, aka getting exposure into fast-growing companies at attractive entry prices, often from early employees or investors looking for liquidity before an IPO.

The second is LP commitments, aka backing emerging fund managers who are seeking the next generation of category leaders before they become household names. AngelList has been running the infrastructure behind thousands of successful early-stage funds in the world for over 15 years. That network is key to our sourcing advantage and why AngelList has the unique infrastructure to help build the fund.

The third is in-kind contributions, aka receiving equity directly from founders and early investors in category-defining companies. This kind of access simply may not flow to funds because they aren’t structured in a way to roll common shares into new equities.

These three sourcing strategies help provide USVC with access to deals that may not flow to other funds, and no single strategy captures all of them.

Secondaries and directs let us buy exposure into fast-growing companies at prices that are often below the next institutional round.

LP commitments give us early exposure to the emerging managers seeking the next generation of category leaders before they're well-known.

And in-kind contributions bring equity and partnerships companies that simply may not show up in traditional deal flow at all.

The result is a differentiated fund with three distinct sourcing advantages.

The minimum is $500.

Not $250,000. Not a wealth manager calling to see if you "qualify." Five hundred bucks.

It’s built this way by design. We want U.S. investors to be able to get started, see how the fund works, and decide over time how much exposure makes sense for their portfolio. The structure supports any check size, from $500 to much larger institutional commitments.

For context: the minimums for a traditional venture fund may often be $250,000+. For a fund of funds, it's could be closer to $100,000. USVC's minimum is 99.8% lower than the industry standard. And that gap is the whole point.

No K-1s!

If you've ever invested in a private fund, hedge fund, or real estate partnership, you know the annual ritual: sometime in March or April, your K-1 arrives. Your accountant files an extension. You're suddenly managing multiple tax documents across multiple states for partnerships you barely interact with.

I've written a lot about tax strategy on this newsletter. K-1s are one of the most under appreciated sources of friction in personal investing, not just administratively, but financially.

Because USVC is a registered fund under the Investment Company Act, the tax situation looks a bit different.

It issues a standard 1099, the same form you get from any stock, ETF, or mutual fund in your brokerage account. It arrives in January or February. Ideally, your tax return files on time.

No carry and competitive management fees.

Traditional VC funds charge what the industry calls "two and twenty" or a 2% annual management fee plus 20% of any profits (carried interest).

That carry is a massive drag on your returns that almost nobody talks about.

USVC charges a 1% management fee and zero carried interest.

Here's the full fee picture for those curious:

  • Gross annual expense: 3.61%, which includes the 1% management fee mentioned above plus an estimated 2.61% from underlying fund expenses (the fees charged by the funds and SPVs we invest into)

  • Sales load: 0.00% when investing directly through USVC.com. Please read the full prospectus for more information on the sales load.

  • Net annual expense: 2.50%, which we negotiated as the fee cap through at least November 2027

Is that higher than a Vanguard index fund? Yes.

Is it structured to align my incentives with yours rather than against them? Also yes.

Partial liquidity can come in quarterly tender offers.

Just to be upfront: this is not intended to be a liquid investment. That said, up to 5% of NAV can be repurchased at the board's discretion. However, there is no guarantee that you will be able to sell the amount of shares that you wish to tender in connection with a given repurchase offer.

This is not a checking account, and you should only invest capital you can afford to keep invested. But relative to traditional VC, which may lock your money up for 10–12 years with no exit ramp, this may meaningfully be better. Relative to a brokerage account, it is not.

It can not be traded like a publicly traded security.

A few venture-adjacent products have come to market recently that trade on exchanges like a stock.

USVC is different from a stock. It is publicly accessible, meaning any U.S. investor can get in at usvc.com starting at $500, but it is not listed on an exchange and cannot be actively bought or sold like a publicly traded security.

You can invest directly, and your shares don't fluctuate based on market sentiment or trade at a premium or discount to NAV.

The tradeoff here is that your primary path to liquidity is through the quarterly repurchase program rather than an exchange order, but there is no guarantee you will be able to sell the amount of shares you wish to tender in a repurchase program. That's an important distinction worth understanding before you invest.

Why did we structure USVC this way?

We believe venture capital rewards patience.

Often, the biggest outcomes may come from companies that compound in private markets the longest.

USVC's quarterly repurchase offer program gives investors materially more flexibility than traditional venture capital funds, while preserving our ability to invest across the full growth cycle. However, quarterly repurchases are not guaranteed; the Board may decline to conduct an offer, reduce it below 5% of net assets, or repurchase shares at a discount to NAV.

The minimum to invest is $500. There is no accredited investor requirement. You can read the full prospectus and invest below.

An investment in the fund is highly speculative, subject to loss, illiquid and may not be appropriate for all investors. For important disclosures and Fund holdings, see here: https://usvc.com/portfolio

Why Naval for Chairman

I want to be careful not to oversell this, because Naval's name gets attached to a lot of things and I know how that can feel.

What I'll say is this: Naval has been thinking about startup investing longer and more carefully than almost anyone I know.

His track record from the early AngelList days, including investments in Twitter, Uber, and dozens of others, isn't the reason I wanted him to be Chairman of our investment process.

It’s the framework that underlies those investments that I’ve always been fascinated by.

It’s how he thinks about which founders have the qualities that lead to outlier outcomes.

It’s how he identifies what a real category creation looks like before the category exists.

As Chairman of our Investment Committee, his role is to help shape how we think about this, including things like our investment philosophy and the standards we hold ourselves to.

I’m grateful to consider him a mentor, a friend, and the foundation this product is built on.

An investment in the fund is highly speculative, subject to loss, illiquid and may not be appropriate for all investors. For important disclosures and Fund holdings, see here: https://usvc.com/portfolio

Why I said yes

I've spent 20 years inside startups. I built Teachable and sold it for $250M, raised a $100M VC fund largely through Twitter DMs, invested in dozens of companies along the way, and have spent the last 4 years building a fintech and personal finance newsletter. I owe this world everything I have. My success, my friendships, my experience. Startups are simply my version of fun.

And for most of that time, the kind of access that USVC offers simply did not exist.

And that’s why I’m proud to partner with the team at AngelList. They’ve spent years building the infrastructure and doing the work to help make this possible.

When I understood what they'd actually built, I stopped looking for a reason to say no.

The other thing I'll say honestly: I've spent year and half writing this newsletter to give you the financial tools that most people never learn. We’ve written about some really cool strategies like the Mega Backdoor Roth, direct indexing, money market funds, among many others. We’ve written about some really cool strategies like the Mega Backdoor Roth, direct indexing, money market funds, among many others.

Tax strategy is real alpha. I believe that deeply. But so is getting into the right asset class at the right time.

I think we are at one of those moments right now.

Private markets have become a signficant source of value creation, and I believe USVC offers thoughtful way for a broader range of investors to gain meaningful exposure to that opportunity.

I'm the Portfolio Manager of USVC, which means I have a direct financial interest in this fund's success and you definitely shouldn’t discount that. But what I can tell you is that I wouldn't ask this audience to consider anything I hadn't spent real time on and genuinely believed in.

An investment in the fund is highly speculative, subject to loss, illiquid and may not be appropriate for all investors. For important disclosures and Fund holdings, see here: https://usvc.com/portfolio

How U.S. investors can get exposure to startups

The minimum investment is $500.

There's no accredited investor requirement and the investment flow is intentionally simple.

There now lies just 7 steps between you and exposure to companies like Anthropic, xAI, OpenAI, Sierra, Crusoe, Legora, and Vercel (and the many incredible names that are come to follow in future investments).

You can read the full prospectus, review the fund's investment strategy and risk factors in detail, and invest at the link below.

An investment in the fund is highly speculative, subject to loss, illiquid and may not be appropriate for all investors. For important disclosures and Fund holdings, see here: https://usvc.com/portfolio

This is one of those things I think I'll look back on as having come together at exactly the right moment. I'm glad I can finally share it with you.

— Ankur

P.S. If you want to support this launch, please show some love on my announcement posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, & Threads. A like, comment, or share helps more than you know. Thank you 🙏

P.P.S. One last thing, next Wednesday at 2 pm ET, I’m hosting a free, live workshop about USVC.

I'll be able to answer any questions you might have about the investment and if it might be the right fit for you. Alternatively, you can reply to this email and someone from my team will get back to you shortly!

I'm the Portfolio Manager of USVC and receive compensation in that capacity. I am also a shareholder in USVC. This email contains an endorsement of USVC by a compensated party.

Investors should carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, sales charges and expenses of USVC before investing. USVC's prospectus contains this and other information and may be obtained at http://usvc.com/prospectus or by calling +1 (888) 200-4361. Read the prospectus carefully before investing.

This communication is for informational purposes only, is not intended to be a recommendation for any investment or other advice of any kind and shall not constitute or imply any offer to purchase, sell or hold any security or to enter into or engage in any type of transaction. Any such offers will only be made pursuant to USVC’s prospectus, which should be carefully reviewed before investing.

Investing in the USVC Venture Capital Access Fund involves significant risk, including the possible loss of principal. Venture capital investments are speculative, illiquid, and subject to a high degree of risk. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

USVC Venture Capital Access Fund is distributed by North Capital Private Securities Corporation, member FINRA. North Capital Private Securities Corporation is not affiliated with USVC’s adviser or its affiliates.

Investing in USVC’s shares involves substantial risk, including the potential loss of your entire investment. Shares are not listed on any exchange, are illiquid, and liquidity is limited to periodic repurchases at the discretion of the Board, which are not guaranteed. This investment is speculative and suitable only for long-term investors who can bear the risks of limited liquidity. Certain conflicts of interest involving USVC and its affiliates could impact USVC’s investment returns and limit the flexibility of its investment policies. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Fees, expenses, and conflicts of interest may reduce returns.

USVC’s shares have no history of public trading. You should not expect to be able to sell your shares other than through USVC’s repurchase policy, regardless of how USVC performs. USVC does not intend to list its shares on any securities exchange during the continuous offering, and it does not expect a secondary market in the shares to develop.

USVC holds portfolio companies directly, through funds, and through special purpose vehicles, which are subject to certain risks including those related to illiquidity, indirect fees, valuation, limited operating histories and limited information regarding underlying investments. As a result of the foregoing, an investment in USVC’s shares is not suitable for investors that require liquidity, other than liquidity provided through USVC’s repurchase policy. The amount of distributions that USVC may pay, if any, is uncertain.

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