Perspectives

There is a moment that happens around the tenth song. You have been playing with Suno, typing prompts, hearing what comes back, sharing one or two with friends, and somewhere around the tenth creation, something shifts.

AI got out of the chat box, and that happened faster than most people expected. It's in your inbox, your calendar, your code editor, your documents. It drafts, summarizes, suggests, and increasingly acts. But what hasn't arrived is AI that actually knows you.

Think about how differently you move through your day compared to a decade ago. The scaffolding of modern life has been rebuilt from the ground up, optimized by software and personalized by data. Then you come home. The home is the largest asset most people will ever own, yet managing it remains fragmented and opaque.

Picture this: you switch from Spotify to Apple Music. The playlists transfer, but something vital disappears—not just what you listened to, but the understanding that you code to death metal and cook...

Two things are unequivocally true about marketing today: 1) it is changing, fast, with the decline of traditional search and rise of new discovery mechanisms, from conversational AI interfaces to...

Around the early 2010s, software moved well beyond the workplace and into our personal lives, accelerated by a range of consumerized business applications and new platforms that popped up designed...

On Track for $1 Billion in Revenue in 2025, Oura Reaches New Heights in Proactive Health At Forerunner, we've always believed the most enduring, generation-defining businesses emerge when shifting...

Some early-stage teams stop you dead in your tracks. A rare combination of deep operational excellence, a unique tenacity for building hard, mission-driven companies from scratch, and, perhaps most...

We're excited to announce that we’ve led AmplifyMD's $20M Series B, alongside F-Prime, Greylock, and strategic partner Memorial Hermann Health System. This marks our second time leading an AmplifyMD...

With most new tech waves, consumers tiptoe in, needing time to warm up before adoption. But with AI, they’ve already blazed past the tipping point. Over 700 million people use ChatGPT weekly; teens...

A 28-year-old nurse in Denver who maxes out her 401(k) every year will retire with roughly $900,000 after 35 years of diligent saving. Her colleague earning the same salary, but able to safely...

Sports have always been about passion, connection, and belonging. But in a $100+ billion live entertainment industry, even the most loyal fans are treated like strangers. Whether you’ve spent $50,000...

The past few years have revealed a massive shift in how consumers treat money, from the rise of crypto assets and /wallstreetbets. Speculation has become entertainment. This relatively new behavior...

We’ve been tracking the rise of the collectibles space for a while, and it’s clear this isn’t just a passing trend. It’s a reflection of a broader, more durable shift: the blending of social,...

Slingshot Unveils Ash, the First AI For Therapy With a Purpose-Built LLM For PsychologyToday, we're announcing that we're co-leading an investment in Slingshot as they unveil Ash, a true breakthrough...

At Forerunner, we've always believed that exceptional customer experiences are the foundation of enduring businesses. Over the last decade, we've partnered with a new generation of customer-focused...

Twelve years ago, we met Chris Britt and Ryan King with an idea and a conviction: that everyday Americans deserved a better relationship with their money. They weren’t setting out to build a bank,...

Our annual Consumer Trend Report is our deep dive into where consumers stand today and how major shifts are shaping new needs and opportunities. We spend months distilling signals from the past year...

Managing money is a forever problem—a persistent, deeply personal challenge that spans demographics, income brackets, and life stages. Whether you're a recent graduate setting a budget for the first...

Building for Consumers In the Age of AIGen AI’s meteoric rise is both well underway and very early relative to the potential. As builders and investors race to uncover where the long-term, durable...

At Forerunner, we often say “the world changes more than people change” — and the world is changing fast, with AI only accelerating the pace. Consumers are adapting, but not always in obvious or...

At Forerunner, we believe the world changes more than people change. A steady cycle of societal, political, and macroeconomic events influences how we live our lives, but...

There are several instances in consumer health — and particularly in women’s health — where a better experience isn’t just a nice-to-have or a matter of greater convenience and comfort, but a...

This year is wrapping up with no shortage of energy and optimism, but still plenty of market intricacies putting pressure on many dimensions of the startup and VC ecosystem.

The marketplace business model has stood the test of time. Some of the largest public consumer tech companies are marketplaces, and marketplaces have produced a breadth and depth of small- and...

Today, we’re announcing that we’re co-leading the series A for Roon, which ensures everyone has access to a trusted expert to help navigate their critical health journeys. Roon is something I’ve...

We’re announcing that we’re leading the series A for Leland, which is building the trusted educational and professional coaching marketplace to become the go-to place for people looking to achieve a...

Forerunner has always been about understanding people, what they want today and what they will need tomorrow. It’s a perspective that has shaped our portfolio and what we uniquely bring to the table...

At Forerunner, we dedicate ourselves to understanding values shifts and technological shifts. Both are rare and defining: values shifts are rooted in a fundamental evolution of human needs, and...

To many, Marc Lore is a familiar name. Marc founded Jet.com, which was acquired by Walmart, and before that Diapers.com, which was acquired by Amazon. He is undisputedly one of the most talented and...

Tell us about your background and where you were before Stan. What was the inspiration that led you to start this company?Stan's mission is really personal to me and the rest of the team. It's just...

Today, Joy is coming out of stealth to provide personalized, guided support throughout parenthood — from caring for a newborn to supporting parents’ financial health, well-being and beyond. Founded...

At Forerunner, we dedicate ourselves to understanding values shifts and technological shifts.

In the digital era, the way we access and interact with information has undergone continuous transformation. Traditional search engines have long served as gateways to vast repositories of data,...

Early this year, we published an article in The Information about how performance of consumer startups stacks up to enterprise startups. This was based on an aggregation of over 12,000 tech companies...

Today, we’re sharing that we’re leading the $20 million series A for Fay, the platform enabling consumers to access registered dietitians at little to no cost through insurance while empowering an...

American culture is synonymous with cars. Considering how much time we spend behind the wheel, it's obvious why. In the past 40 years, the number of miles Americans collectively drive has increased...

Our inaugural Consumer Trend Report is a data-driven analysis rooted in what’s driving consumers, where consumers are heading, and where investment opportunities exist.

An abbreviated version of this essay appeared in The Information and can be read here.We live in a consumer-driven economy—consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of the U.S. GDP. Yet Carta...

Meet Craftwork: a new company building the first iconic consumer brand in home services through a trusted, reliable, tech-enabled source for home repairs, starting with house painting — while also...

At Forerunner, we believe in keeping our team lean, nimble and purposefully structured to only include the experts who will ensure we succeed — but we also remain eyes-wide-open about how to maintain...

Despite especially tumultuous economic conditions for consumers, including a looming recession, inflation and historic rises in interest rates, consumer spending is proving remarkably resilient. Even...

I asked the Forerunner team to share what’s on their to-do list, specifically their most dreaded, long-procrastinated tasks. Their responses:

Every American pays into systems that are built to protect them when a crisis strikes. Our payroll taxes fund social safety net programs, our monthly premiums fund insurance coverage, and our...

We’re announcing today that we’re leading the $12M series A for Topline Pro, which is building the first comprehensive tech stack for the $500B+ home services industry. Topline Pro enables the...

Over the past decades, software-enabled business models have unlocked new opportunities for people to work for themselves. Labor marketplaces, like Uber and Doordash, have allowed people to set their...

Today, we’re unveiling something we’ve been working on behind the scenes for over a year, born out of hundreds of conversations with entrepreneurs and operators, in addition to primary research: the...

One critical shift we’re tracking at Forerunner, which has gained sharp momentum in recent years, is how seemingly basic, core life fundamentals are becoming luxuries — and thus being reborn as...

This week, we shared that we’re welcoming Jump to the Forerunner portfolio and leading their $20M recent fundraise. Jump’s mission is inherently energizing. They are reshaping the fan experience by...

Forerunner is dedicating $250 million to addressing the traditional needs of a non-traditional society You don’t have to look very far to see that humanity is in a precarious place.

Today, Forerunner is unveiling comprehensive psychographic research that we’ve been developing since Summer 2022, illuminating who consumers are today and how our behaviors and preferences are...

At Forerunner, we obsess about the purchase journey for the consumer–but sometimes, the consumer isn’t a person. It’s a business. And while B2C e-commerce has meaningfully evolved over the last...

I’ve become an occasional buyer and seller of secondhand goods online, and I find myself craving more. To date, my journey has had as many magic moments as frustrating experiences. Selling furniture...

Real estate investments provide a unique mix of benefits – especially when the markets are as volatile as they’ve been so far this year. Investors get steady cash flows, long-term appreciation,...

Max Rhodes, Co-Founder and CEO of Faire, had a tough time adjusting when he jumped from public school in Oklahoma to Yale University in 2005. After years of checking every box on the path to textbook...

I first came across ŌURA in early 2019. I have to give credit to my husband, who as a neurosurgeon, was working with a personal trainer to address his own health challenges—back pain from years of...

Medical specialists are a critical part of a hospital's ability to serve its patients – hematologists for leukemias, infectious disease specialists for insect-borne illnesses, neurologists for...

The face of America is changing. According to the latest U.S. Census data, children in this country will grow up with no ethnic majority for the first time in our nation’s history. However, that...

With a recently-closed Series C, Homebound's Co-Founder & CEO is bringing her proprietary proptech platform to new markets. Growing up, Homebound Co-Founder & CEO Nikki Pechet wanted to be just like...

Forerunner and govtech? The marriage may not be obvious at first glance, but when the company at hand is transforming the purchase journey for the sector and empowering buyers and sellers to do better business—absolutely.

Today we're announcing our new $1B raise, including a $500M vehicle for early-stage investing, and a $500M vehicle for growth.

There are few industries with greater inertia than restaurants–a shame for a nearly $1T U.S. industry employing 15M people and serving as a cherished pinnacle of culture. The business model is, and...

You’d never know it from his personable nature, but Josh Fabian, Founder and CEO of Metafy, wasn’t always popular. Adopted as a baby and raised in a small farm town as the only person of color, he...

As Co-Founder of telehealth pioneer Hims & Hers, Joe Spector spent all his energy thinking about how best to grow the brand—like entering retailers like Target, or partnering with big-name stars. And...

At Forerunner, we're passionate about the empowerment economy, especially opportunities that help marginalized demographics enter the workforce. We love businesses that leverage a technology backbone...

We spend a lot of time online these days. The average American spent 3.5 hours per day on social media alone during 2020, amounting to 1300 hours per person last year. In addition to time, we also...

I first met Dave Gilboa at a Peet’s Coffee on Sansome Street in San Francisco in the winter of 2010. He and three classmates—Neil Blumenthal, Jeff Raider, and Andy Hunt—were working on an idea for a...

Julie Bornstein, Founder and CEO of THE YES, is a pioneer of the e-commerce era. After working in politics, nonprofits and fashion, she found her way to investment banking in the late 1990s. Spoiler...

My first meeting with Ryan Mundy was memorable. In the first five minutes, it was immediately clear that he was an unstoppable force, hiding a fearless intensity behind a gentle smile and even kinder...

We’re pleased to announce our investment in Clay, rethinking the software that fosters one of the most important things in our lives: our interpersonal relationships. At Forerunner, we put people in...

Karl Ulfers, Co-Founder and CEO of DUOS, admits he’s one of the lucky ones. Both his grandparents on his father’s side are still living—and, as he puts it, they are “stubborn, fiercely independent,...

We’ve all seen the headlines, noticed the trend, or engaged in it ourselves: The pandemic bred a pet boom. As the sector skyrockets and the pet telemedicine regulatory landscape changes...

When Forerunner first partnered with digital brands and platforms, I was leading acquisition at Bonobos—a pioneering digital apparel brand for men founded in 2007, and one of the first to reach scale...

We don’t want to wait around for change; we want to accelerate it.In venture capital, I see diversity not as a hollow buzzword, but a mission to make the startup ecosystem—and thus, the larger...

Arnaud Plas, Co-Founder and CEO of Prose, is a CPG and beauty industry veteran. He moved around from Henkel to L’Oreal, working in Paris, Dusseldorf and New York across various marketing and digital...

For years we’ve pored over the older adult space at Forerunner, and for good reason: the US population of individuals 65+ is growing rapidly as Baby Boomers age. As the fabric of society continues to...

Today, the internet is the indisputable focal point of our day-to-day lives. Our smartphones seem as critical as our right arms. We Slack our colleagues, SMS our friends, Zoom our business contacts,...

The Expert is on a mission to expand access to the knowledge, inspiration, and validation of great designers regardless of budget or geographic location.

On the heels of the DTC revolution, brand choices have exploded. And in so many ways, there’s never been a better time to be a consumer.

Consumers are more mindful of the health and environmental impact of the food they eat. We’re increasingly looking for clean, plant-based foods to replace meat and dairy, which together use 83% of...

Since our founding nearly 10 years ago, Forerunner has remained a small but mighty team.

The ability to educate our children effectively in a remote learning environment has never been more pertinent. With the majority of the nation’s 57M school-aged children toiling with remote learning...

In 2020, the onset of a new decade, we find ourselves at a human and business inflection point. To put this into context, the last twenty years have seen enormous professional, personal, and cultural...