David Bloom

Ribbit wasn’t the lead investor in any of their biggest value drivers. They didn’t lead any of the initial rounds above for Coinbase, Robinhood, Nubank, Revolut, but still wrote meaningful checks and had exceptional returns.

As in the USV story, it is never too late to build what could potentially be the best fund in venture history. Micky was 38 years old when he founded Ribbit, having built five companies prior, most with good but none with generational success.

He then joined Micky while he was at Stanford GSB. Nikolay joined them from Morgan Stanley, where he was a tech investment banker.

*Dear Micky, if you are reading this, please let me know if the estimates are close.

Ribbit’s Fund I had BBVA and Silicon Valley Bank as institutional investors, rest mostly being high-net-worth individuals. F

For their biggest value drivers, USV was neither first nor the only investor to see these companies. It seems like they have recognized the upside in ideas that might’ve been a bit out there at the time for the other investors.

Sometimes one differentiates with a killer blog and by being an outsider vs. being the Nth local firm (our Brazilian friends call this the Gringo effect ).

Fred had a clear chip on his shoulder. He lost his first venture firm, Flatiron, following a poor vintage during the dotcom boom, and went through a period of self-reflection before starting USV. He notes that the first thing on his mind was to prove wrong all the people who didn’t want to keep going with them.

It is never too late to build one of the best funds in history. When they raised and deployed USV Fund I, Fred was in his early 40s, having spent almost two decades in venture, and Brad was in his late 40s.

John Buttrick in 2010, following his corporate law career, and Andy Weissman in 2011 after having founded Betaworks in 2007.

* 2023 data by Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund

This is a story of why flows are often a bigger driver of valuation than fundamentals.

The supply/demand dynamics in the private markets create a persistent, valuation-agnostic bid for top private companies: an order of magnitude more capital pointed at companies than the amount they can productively absorb. Those same businesses, if they were to go... See more