This post was originally published on the USV blog and can be found here.
I’m excited to be joining Union Square Ventures as an analyst. I started out my career at Bain, where I spent a significant amount of time running investment diligence on a range of growth-to-late stage technologies across consumer, enterprise, fintech, and healthtech. Interested in the intersection of private capital, technology, and societal returns, I completed a short-term externship at Silver Lake Partners working on their ESG strategy. This work reconfirmed the urgency of the climate crisis, and I am continually inspired by the scale at which climate tech and talent has mobilized to provide much needed solutions.
A liberal arts major and essay-enthusiast, I immediately identified with the thesis-driven generalist approach of USV. I studied a mix of politics, philosophy, and economics in college and sought to better understand modern challenges (like income inequality, housing reform, and healthcare access) through the models articulated by social theorists and historians. On reflection, I like to think this lends itself well to a career in VC, which in itself is an education in observing how our world works, theorizing what drives it, and backing entrepreneurs who make it work better. During college I was lucky to be able to complete coursework in England, India, Brazil, and South Africa, and I hope to continue USV’s history of supporting founders not just in the US but also abroad.
I’m looking forward to working with entrepreneurs pursuing all kinds of creative disruption while at USV. In addition to contributing to our Thesis 3.0 more broadly, I have already begun researching novel approaches to mental health, the financialization of climate tech, and the implications of AI on education and wellness.
Outside of work, you can catch me watching documentaries about musicians and music-making, learning how to surf, or reading the Sunday Times newspaper when feeling homesick for my hometown, London.
Please reach out to [grace at usv dot com] or (@gracekcarney) if you’re working on something that aligns with the USV theses and want to chat.
