Rebecca Kaden

Kaden was born in New York City, studied English and American literature at Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry, and later earned an MBA from Stanford University. She began her career in journalism as a reporter at The Economist.⁠[1][1][2]

After graduating from Stanford Graduate School of Business, Kaden spent more than five years at Maveron, an early-stage venture firm focused on consumer companies, where she became a general partner and worked on investments including Allbirds, Dia&Co, Periscope, and WayUp. Fred WilsonFred WilsonFred Wilson is an American venture capitalist, co-founder and partner of the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV), and earlier co-founder, with Jerry Colonna, of the internet investment firm Flatiron Partners. He has written the blog AVC since 2003, chaired Etsy’s board for many years, and is a director of Coinbase.Open the full entry wrote that Maveron, like USV, had stayed small, focused on seed and Series A investments, and stuck to its consumer investing thesis.⁠[2][1][3]

Kaden announced that she was leaving Maveron to join the investment team at Union Square Ventures as a general partner, becoming the firm’s first female partner. She wrote that the USV team’s passion for entrepreneurs and innovation, curiosity, and belief in seismic change were contagious, and that returning to her hometown of New York was another reason for joining.⁠[2][2][2]

USV co-founder Fred Wilson wrote that USV had spent a year finding the right person and that she was only the fourth partner added in the firm’s fourteen-year history; Albert WengerAlbert WengerAlbert Wenger is a New York venture capitalist and writer, a partner at Union Square Ventures (USV), former president of the bookmarking site del.icio.us, and author of The World After Capital, which discusses the scarcity of attention and basic income; he also co-founded community projects in Hudson, New York, including a basic income pilot. Since October 2026 he has moved to continuing support of USV and is no longer listed on its core investment team.Open the full entry and Andy WeissmanAndy WeissmanAndy Weissman is a New York venture capitalist who has been a partner at Union Square Ventures (USV) since 2011 and earlier co-founded the technology company and investment platform betaworks; when USV announced its new funds in October 2026, he moved to continuing support of the firm and its portfolio companies and is no longer listed on the core investment team.Open the full entry led the search, and Kaden represented the start of USV’s next generation of partners. He also said publicly that USV had wanted to add diversity to its partnership, but not for optics or because of public pressure.⁠[3][3][3][3][3][3]

After joining USV, Kaden led the firm’s efforts in several areas. In April 2019, Fred Wilson wrote that about 15% to 20% of USV’s early-stage investments over its previous two fund cycles were in healthcare, quoting Kaden’s view that combining data with people beats either alone, that access should be broadened by increasing value and lowering the cost of care, and that care should be outcome-oriented. That year USV raised $450 million in new funds.⁠[4][5][5][6]

Kaden wrote about USV’s participation in the Series A of the chip company Efficient Computer. She argued that the world is becoming programmable and that energy is the prime constraint, and that Efficient Computer’s first chip, the Electron E1, delivers far more compute within the same energy footprint.⁠[7][7][7]

Kaden wrote a post welcoming Michael MignanoMichael MignanoMichael Mignano is an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist, co-founder and CEO of the podcasting platform Anchor, which Spotify acquired in 2019. He was a partner at Lightspeed and since 2026 has been a general partner at the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV).Open the full entry, co-founder of Anchor and a former partner at Lightspeed, to the USV partnership. She wrote that USV had co-invested and served on boards with him during his time at Lightspeed and admired his idea-driven, early-stage-focused, open-minded approach and his respect for the founders he backs.⁠[8][8][8]

On the USV blog, Kaden argued that open tools and infrastructure outside the big models, which USV calls the “rebel alliance,” would give rise to a wave of agentic consumer apps; she also set out the “Data at the Edge” investment thesis, arguing that many of the most critical data sets have long been impossible to access or interpret and that in the AI era data is the ultimate currency.⁠[9][10][10]

Kaden, together with Fred Wilson, Michael Mignano, and Nick GrossmanNick GrossmanNick Grossman is an American venture capitalist and a general partner at the New York venture firm Union Square Ventures (USV), focusing on technologies such as crypto networks and AI agents that could reshape large markets. He began his career in urban planning and open-source civic technology and joined USV in 2012.Open the full entry, announced that USV had raised $900 million in new funds: a $500 million core fund and a $400 million fund for later-stage deals and follow-on investments. The four became USV’s active general partners going forward.⁠[11][11][12][12]

X: Public account: https://x.com/rebeccakaden (opens in a new window)⁠[13][1]

Union Square Ventures: Official website: https://www.usv.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]