NG

Nick Grossman

General Partner at Union Square Ventures

United States

Invests in

Stages:

  • Min Investment:

    $1,000,000.00
  • Max Investment:

    $6,000,000.00
  • Target Investment:

    $4,250,000.00

Education

Work Experience

  • General Partner

    2019

    Investing in early stage opportunities across USV's thesis areas, including web2, web3, climate, and AI.

  • Special Projects

    2012 - 2018

    Focus = web3/crypto, trust & safety, data/privacy, security, legal/regulatory/policy.

2011 - 2013

  • Visiting Scholar

    2011 - 2013

    Studied tech policy while at the MIT Media Lab's Center for Civic Media. My work during this time was supported by the Ford Foundation and Union Square Ventures.

2011 - 2011

  • Managing Director, Civic Commons

    2011 - 2011

    Advised cities on open source / open data / open standards strategy, and supported the Open311 web standard.

2006 - 2011

  • Director, OpenPlans Labs

    2006 - 2011

    OpenPlans was an incubator for startups at the intersection of cities and data. Our ~50 person team of designers, developers and business leaders created things such as: * MTA Bus Time: NYC's real-time bus data platform and API (http://bustime.mta.info) * Open311: open web standard for reporting urban issues, deployed in ~50 cities worldwide (http://www.open311.org) * OpenTripPlanner: open source multi-modal routing engine; world's largest open source software project for public transit (http://opentripplanner.com) * OpenPlans Transportation: enterprise open source business serving transportation market (now Conveyal: http://conveyal.com) * Civic Works: app development studio focused on urban mapping (now at http://openplans.org) * TransportationCamp: unconference series in SF, NYC, DC, Montreal, Atlanta and more cities (http://transportationcamp.org) * NY Transit Data: successful campaign to convince NYC Transit to open up its data (http://nytransitdata.org) * Streetsblog: blog covering transportation policy, now in 8 cities, with 400 member blog network worldwide (http://streetsblog.org) * Streetfilms: film company covering urban transportation issues (http://www.streetfilms.org) * GothamSchools: blog covering education in NYC (now ChalkBeat: http://chalkbeat.org) Clients, partners & funders included: City of NY, City of SF, District of Columbia, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (NY), Portland TriMet, IBM, The Boston Globe, Rockefeller Foundation, Knight Foundation, Omidyar Network, MacArthur Foundation.

2006 - 2011

  • Co-Founder

    2006 - 2011

    Launched Streetsblog.org as NYC's hub for transportation policy news, discussion and advocacy. Grew Streetsblog to include outposts in SF, LA and DC, a 400-member blog network, and a film company, Streetfilms. Streetsblog and Streetfilms helped catalyze NYC's movement to reform its transportation policies to make the city more walkable, bikeable and transit-friendly -- resulting in the construction of 250 miles of new bike lanes, the redesign of dozens of NYC's plazas, major reform of the city's parking policies, and the launch of the city's bike-sharing program, CitiBike.

2001 - 2007

  • Web Developer

    2001 - 2007

    Built websites and web applications as an independent developer and designer. Clients included NYC-area small businesses, nonprofits and startups.

  • Project Manager

    2002 - 2006

    Studied patterns of activity in public spaces and made recommendations for improvements. Projects included: Times Square (NYC); Washington Square Park (NYC); Jamaica Transit Station Area (NYC); Littleton, NH; Lincoln, NE; Newark, NJ.

2000 - 2003

  • Ballboy

    2000 - 2003

    Yes, I was basically an adult when I did this. But it was awesome.

2001 - 2002

  • Laborer / Apprentice Carpenter

    2001 - 2002

    Learned to build houses and shovel gravel.

1994 - 1997

  • Ski Instructor

    1994 - 1997

    Taught toddlers to snowplow and pre-teens to carve.