Dave is right - USVC yet another grift in the world of retail-accessible VC. I went through the 56-page prospectus and its even worse than the tweet suggests:
1. Fee stack: 3.61% gross annual expense ratio, capped net at 2.50%. Underlying SPVs/VC funds charge another 1–2.5% mgmt + 20–30% carry on top. You're paying 3+ layers of fees before any return hits your account.
2. The prospectus states twice, verbatim: "The Investment Adviser has no previous experience managing a closed-end, registered investment company." The adviser was formed Dec 2023 and rebranded from "Strawberry Tree Management" to "AngelList Asset Management" last November.
3. Portfolio manager Ankur Nagpal is compensated on AUM growth, not performance. Straight from the prospectus: his Carry acquisition earnout "includes contingent payments tied to USVC's growth in assets under management." Textbook non-traded REIT incentive structure.
4. AngelList gets paid three times on the same dollar:
• 1% advisory fee to AngelList Asset Management
• Up to 5% of profits to Platform Advisor LLC (AngelList affiliate)
• Fund admin fees to Belltower Fund Group (AngelList affiliate)
5. NAV is sponsor-marked - the adviser is its own "valuation designee." Prospectus disclaimer: "Fair value prices are necessarily subjective in nature…no assurance that such a price will be at or close to the price at which the security is next quoted or next trades."
6. "5% quarterly redemptions" is marketing. Reality: Board can cancel any offer, can offer less than 5%, can repurchase at a discount to NAV, and oversubscribed offers prorate. Straight from the doc: "Shareholders should not rely on being able to tender the full amount—or any—of their Shares."
7. Naval frames it as "VC for everyone." The prospectus describes a non-traded CEF with sponsor-marked NAV, AUM-linked manager comp, three layers of affiliate fees, and gated discretionary liquidity.
Retail doesn't need access to private markets this badly.
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@defisushi@MANTRA_Chain The $OM I bridged to MANTRA still hasn't arrived... it's been more than 36 hours. Any chance you know how I can speed things up?
Sigh... again with the ETH misinformation as we await a decision on ETH ETPs. Ok--let’s talk about some basic facts about Ethereum. Millions of Americans hold ETH; it has been vital to crypto since its 2015 launch; and ETH is a commodity, not a security. 1/10
Visited “Notes from the Ether” yesterday.
Curated by Deborah Lim and @claracxw, this exhibition at @ArtSciMuseum 🇸🇬 showcases an excellent array of digital artworks.
Took some photos and penned a short write-up on @Joynxyz:
https://t.co/PuJmlH0Mif
Just getting started with @ItsObviousTech, one of the leading smart contract wallets out there, integrated into the Polygon zkEVM ecosystem. #PolygonzkEVM bound with #Intract 🚀
You’ve gotta see this.
In full.
Football is football. Sport is sport.
End of story.
Get into sport played by women, and the phenomenal athletes in the @FIFAWWC
Copyright @orangefrance
Buying Melwood for Liverpool Women is good. Selling it and overlooking them in the first place was a joke.
#LFC auctioned off doors and all sorts from Melwood after they moved into world class facilities at AXA as #LFCW were cramped in at Solar Campus.
https://t.co/XDSWNSIJ5R
1/ On Governments & Public Blockchains
We spend so much timing talking about what stupid things governments should NOT do with blockchains, that we often forget to discuss what they SHOULD do
Governments should mandatorily use blockchains for their own spending
1/20
Breakdown of the SEC Coinbase complaint:
Advocates that since 2019 it's been an unregistered broker (odd year to pick?)
What changed in 2019 versus prior years?
Also claims its a clearing agency - which is a stretch here.