Assertion Partly supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

USV's 2004 Fund Had Four Investments Each Return the Full Fund

Brad Burnham · 20VC: USV's Brad Burnham on Co-Founding USV with Fred Wilson, What They Look For In Potential Partners & Whether We Are Entering a Period of Consolidation or Expansion · Jul 13, 2016 · at 17:46

Brad Burnham, co-founder of Union Square Ventures, reflects on the major inflection point in USV's history and reputation stemming from their 2004 fund investments.

0:00 / 0:11exact quote · 11.7s

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“We made investments in Zynga, Twitter, Indeed, and Etsy within about a six month period. In our 2004 fund, each of those returned the fund.”

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The claim, plainly

Union Square Ventures' 2004 fund invested in Zynga, Twitter, Indeed, and Etsy within a six-month period, and each of those four investments individually returned the full fund size.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

The claim consists of two distinct assertions: that USV's 2004 fund invested in Indeed, Etsy, Twitter, and Zynga within a six-month period, and that each investment individually returned the full $125 million fund size. Financial records confirm that each of these four companies individually returned more than the total $125 million committed capital of Fund I. However, the investment timeline claim is false: the investments spanned from August 2005 (Indeed) to December 2007/January 2008 (Zynga), a window of approximately 28 to 29 months, rather than six months.

USV's 2004 Fund I had total committed capital of $125 million.
Initial investments were made in Indeed (Aug-Sep 2005), Etsy (May-Jun 2006), Twitter (Jul 2007), and Zynga (Dec 2007-Jan 2008), spanning ~28-29 months.
Realized returns for Twitter (>$800M), Zynga ($300M-$450M), Etsy, and Indeed ($750M-$1B total acquisition value where USV was a main institutional investor) each individually exceeded the $125M fund size.

Checked against

[1] deciphr.ai [2] usv.com [3] theinformation.com [4] substack.com [5] substack.com [6] observer.com [7] usv.com [8] usv.com

assessed as of 2026-07-23

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

Etsy Indeed Twitter Union Square Ventures Zynga

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