The access problem in venture

A quick note before this week's issue.

Signature Block has always been about distilling the knowledge that makes fund management work. The back office, the LP relationships, the things nobody teaches you and everyone learns the hard way.

Today, I'm handing the mic to Ankur Nagpal, founder of Carry and Teachable and GP of AngelList’s new public access venture fund, to share something we're genuinely excited about.

They recently announced USVC, a new kind of fund designed to broaden access to venture capital by giving retail (non-accredited) investors exposure to promising private companies.

As of March 31 2026, they hold positions in generational private companies like xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic, among others. They’re backing funds to give investors exposure to much earlier stage companies, before they’ve become household names.

Today, they’re announcing their investment in Weekend Fund IV, our latest fund.

Ankur is building USVC to solve a problem I've thought about for a long time: how do individual investors get access to the earliest stage of venture, before the returns are obvious and the minimums are unreachable?

The answer he's building is worth understanding, both as a potential investor and as a fund manager thinking about where LP capital is going.

And yes, this post may sound a bit promotional for us at Weekend Fund but I’ve known Ankur for several years and know how driven he is to make USVC successful. I personally invested in the fund and excited to partner with them.

Now onto Ankur…

— Ryan Hoover

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I raised my last $100M venture fund largely through Twitter DMs.

One tweet announcing it, a lot of conversations, and a bet that investors who trusted that my judgment as a founder might extend it to a fund.

It worked, but the experience clarified something I already suspected: the way capital flows into early-stage venture is deeply inefficient and almost all of that inefficiency falls on individual allocators.

Meanwhile, the best founders in the world are raising seed rounds right now, and the best managers in venture are writing those checks.

But by the time any of this becomes visible to retails investors through IPOs, almost all of the compounding has already happened.

USVC was built to change that.

What USVC actually is

USVC is a registered closed-end fund that gives Americans investors access to venture starting at a $500 investment.

It's a portfolio that combines commitments to exceptional emerging managers, direct investments in breakout private companies, and secondaries. It’s one position with multiple layers and stages of exposure.

Any American investor can get started at $500, with no accreditation required. And while we can’t accept international investors today, we hope to support non-U.S. investors in the coming week.

The USVC strategy starts with a simple belief: the best venture returns are identified by managers who find great companies before the market arrives.

Our job at USVC is to identify those managers early, back them with LP capital, and follow the winning companies as they scale.

Weekend Fund is the clearest expression of that thesis I've seen.

Why we invested in Weekend Fund IV

As many of you already know, Ryan built Product Hunt, the platform where more than 100,000 founders launch products every year.

Figma launched there. Notion. Deel. Loom. Generational companies that now shape how the world works.

What that platform gave Ryan isn't just deal flow. It's a decade of watching founders build in public before pitch decks, advisors, or the first institutional check.

Most investors meet founders after the story is already written. Weekend Fund meets them before anyone else knows their name. And it’s that information that compounds into pattern recognition most investors can't replicate.

The clearest example: Alex Bouaziz was launching products on Product Hunt long before he and Shuo Wang co-founded Deel. That's how Ryan knew him. When Alex raised his seed round after Y Combinator, Weekend Fund was an early check at a $10M post-money valuation. Deel is now worth $17.3B.

Ryan's partner at Weekend Fund, Vedika Jain, brings a different and complementary edge.

She spent years building companies before backing them. First as an analyst at Stripe. Then as the first product manager at TrueLayer, where she helped scale the team from 6 to 80.

Most investors evaluate founders from the outside. Vedika knows what good looks like from the inside, what high-functioning teams feel like, what early execution signals actually mean before they show up in the numbers.

Together, they evaluate roughly 2,000 companies a year and write checks into approximately 15. Their past portfolio includes Deel, Rail, InVideo, Intercom, Extropic, Mindbloom, Outset, Truemed, among others.

Where we're going

Weekend Fund IV is one piece of our larger thesis in venture.

USVC's goal is to systematically index venture, and our best way of doing that at the earliest stage is by backing the managers who are structurally positioned to find the best companies first.

Weekend Fund’s position in that market is one version of that edge. Other managers have different edges: distribution networks, domain expertise, geography. What they share is access that most LPs can't replicate.

Individual investors have been locked out of this part of the market for decades. The accreditation rules alone excluded most of them. The minimum check sizes excluded most of the rest. And even the ones who could get in rarely had the data to evaluate what they were buying.

USVC is the structure that changes that. And behind it, a portfolio of the best early-stage managers and companies we can find.

Weekend Fund earned its place in that portfolio and we are excited to partner with them through our investment.

Read the full announcement or you can email us for more information at invest@usvc.com.

— Ankur Nagpal

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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 (844) 988-1720. 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.

The performance information presented in this communication regarding Weekend Fund I, II, III, and IV reflects the performance of separate investment vehicles that are not managed by, affiliated with, or offered by USVC Venture Capital Access Fund or its investment adviser. This information is provided for illustrative purposes only and should not be interpreted as indicative of USVC's past or future performance. An investment in USVC does not provide any retroactive exposure to the returns of Weekend Fund's prior funds.

Certain statements in this communication, including those regarding USVC's investment thesis, the expected characteristics of fund managers, and anticipated investment outcomes, are forward-looking statements. These statements reflect USVC's current beliefs and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied.

Investing in the USVC Venture Capital Access Fund involves significant risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. Venture capital investments are speculative, illiquid, and subject to a high degree of risk. The Fund invests primarily in private funds and private companies, which are subject to risks related to illiquidity, indirect fees, valuation uncertainty, limited operating histories, and limited information regarding underlying investments. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

USVC Venture Capital Access Fund is distributed by ALPS Distributors, Inc., member FINRA. ALPS Distributors, Inc. is not affiliated with USVC's adviser or its affiliates.

USVC's shares have no history of public trading. Shares are not listed on any exchange, are illiquid, and liquidity is limited to periodic repurchases at the discretion of the Board of Trustees, which are not guaranteed. 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. This investment is speculative and suitable only for long-term investors who can bear the risks of limited liquidity.

USVC invests in private funds 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, 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. Certain conflicts of interest involving USVC and its affiliates could impact USVC's investment returns and limit the flexibility of its investment policies. Fees, expenses, and conflicts of interest may reduce returns.