Most people get access to companies like Anthropic, Mercury, and Ramp on IPO day.
In 1980, the median company went public at 6 years old. In 2024, it was 13.
They also show up bigger by revenue today. Adjusted for inflation, the median company going public in 1980 had $64 million in revenue. In 2024, it had $218 million.
SpaceX is one such example. It was founded in 2002 and went public this June at around $1.75 trillion, 24 years later. Nearly all of that value was built in private, where most U.S. investors couldn't gain access.
USVC was built to help close that gap, and this quarter was yet another example of the growth possible in private markets:
Mercury earned its second major bank approval.
Legora doubled its annual revenue to $200 million in under six months.
Ramp launched invoicing, so companies can now run money in and out through one platform.
Anthropic is reportedly heading for a November IPO, and our investors already have exposure.
Ultimately, there's more activity in our portfolio than we can fit in one email, but here are six highlights we’re especially excited about.
The convergence of the corporate finance stack
When we shared our investment in Mercury this May, we wrote about how business infrastructure gets rebuilt every few years by founders who’ve lived with the problem and can’t help but press CTLR-ALT-DELETE on bloat.
Mercury redesigned business banking. Ramp started with the corporate card.
This quarter, both moved toward the same place: running a company's whole finance stack, from the cash it holds to the books it closes.
Mercury got its second bank approval, bringing lending one step closer to customers.
Today, Mercury runs on partner banks and splits the revenue from customer deposits with them. Its own charter would let it keep that revenue and offer things it can't today, like Zelle and lending.
In September, the FDIC conditionally approved deposit insurance for the proposed Mercury Bank, N.A., its latest approval since the OCC's in April. The Federal Reserve still has to sign off, and Mercury doesn't expect the bank to open before 2027, but it’s the next step in integrating their business stack.
Immad Akhund, Mercury’s CEO, estimates lending makes up 80% to 90% of most banks' revenue, and right now Mercury can't lend against the deposits sitting on its platform. He's also said Mercury has outgrown the partner-bank system, which was never built for a company with its volume of customers and deposits.
Beyond regulatory approval, Mercury was also busy launching Mercury Command, their AI that completes financial work end-to-end, as well as Mercury Spend and Mercury Books which support businesses with cards, expenses, and accounting.
Ramp started with the corporate card. Now it runs your invoices too.
Ramp built its business on money going out: corporate cards, expense reports, and paying bills.
In September, it launched a product for money coming in. It sends invoices, tracks who has paid, and records it in the books.
Once both sides of a company's cash run through Ramp, it sees the full picture, which makes it harder to replace.
Big companies can now buy Ramp through AWS and Microsoft, out of cloud budgets they've already approved.
Ramp was valued at $44 billion in June. In September, Bloomberg reported early talks of a new raise at $60 billion valuation.
The AI stack continues to evolve
AI is seemingly more competitive by the month. The frontier labs are racing each other for market share, and open-weight models are becoming a credible alternative for developers who want more control and lower costs.
This quarter, we saw that play out at every layer of the stack, from the model to the infrastructure to the applications built on top.
Anthropic's revenue pace is reportedly on track to pass $100 billion this year.
In May, Anthropic was reportedly at a revenue run rate of $47 billion a year. By mid-September, Bloomberg reported that pace was on track to pass $100 billion this year.
The IPO, now reportedly targeted for mid-November, is the first time most people will be able to buy it. USVC investors already have exposure. And unlike a traditional venture fund, which runs on a 10-year clock and often has to sell after an IPO, we can keep holding.
Baseten is reportedly raising at twice its June valuation as AI spend shifts to open-weight models.
Baseten runs models in production for developers, mostly open-source ones, so its growth doesn’t depend on which AI model wins. If AI usage keeps climbing, Baseten could climb with it, regardless of which model comes out on top.
In September, Axios reported Baseten is in talks at a $26 billion valuation, double its June price.
Legora doubled to $200 million in yearly revenue in under six months.
Much of a lawyer's day goes to reading and drafting for contracts and cases. Legora's AI does that work, and it has been in our portfolio since USVC launched in April.
Bloomberg reported Legora is in talks to raise at a valuation of $8.5 billion, up from $5.6 billion this spring.
A moonshot takes its next step
Loyal's first lifespan drug could reach vets before its trial even ends.
Loyal is betting that aging can be treated like a disease, and that dogs are the fastest way to prove it. A dog drug can cost about $50 million to develop instead of billions, and show results in years instead of decades.
In September, the FDA agreed that LOY-003, a daily pill for large dogs, is likely to work. All three of Loyal's drugs have now cleared the FDA's efficacy step. For a lifespan drug, that's the hardest step. Nobody had previously convinced the FDA that a drug could extend life before a full trial proved it, and Loyal has now done it three times.
If LOY-002, its lead drug for senior dogs, gets conditional approval, vets could prescribe it while Loyal's large trial keeps running. It would be the first FDA-approved drug for extending lifespan in any species.
You’re Invited: USVC Q3 Briefing
Our investor briefing on Wednesday October 7th at 2pm ET is where we’ll decode what’s happening in private markets live.
A few things we'll dig into:
What happens to our Anthropic exposure if it goes public this year. Most venture funds are on a 10-year clock and often have to sell after an IPO. I'll walk through how we think about holding versus selling, and what the IPO could mean for the fund.
Why Mercury and Ramp are converging. Both are moving toward running a company's entire finance stack, and we'll talk about why that matters and who may be positioned to win long term.
How we pick companies and decide how much to put in. What we look for, what we pass on, and how we size positions across a portfolio like this one.
Why the best companies may be staying private longer. Companies are going public later and doing it at greater scale than in 1980, and we'll talk about what that means for where the value gets built.
If there's something you've been wondering about the fund or a company in the portfolio, this is the place to ask.
— Ankur Nagpal, General Partner
— Erik Syvertsen, USVC Board Chair
P.S. Unlike a traditional venture fund, you don't have to wait for the next fundraise cycle to invest. USVC is open on an ongoing basis, so if you'd like to increase your allocation and gain exposure to the growth mentioned above, you can do so here.
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