Forerunner Ventures has announced a new $500 million early-stage investment fund. This fund would focus on maximizing opportunities and their value for consumers. This fund brings Forerunner’s assets under management to nearly $3 billion since the firm was launched 12 years ago.
The $500 million size is the same as Forerunner’s last two early-stage funds. The firm’s early-stage investments range from $1 million to $20 million across seed to Series A and span health and wellness, commerce, consumer finance, prosumer, education, social, and marketplaces.
So far, Forerunner has invested in 150+ companies totaling to tens of billions in market cap.
KEY QUOTES:
“Fund VII comes at a critical inflection point for consumer-focused businesses. Technology touches every part of a person’s life, but it has not always made it easier. You can immediately get the results of a blood test on your phone, but what you want is clarity on what the results mean and what you should do about them. Similarly, there is no shortage of sources for planning a vacation, but no simple way to generate an itinerary that makes everyone in the family happy. While tech’s promise of information at our fingertips and democratized goods and services was intended to empower us with optionality, consumers are now inundated, as the onus is on them to manage and optimize a seemingly endless list of life dimensions.”
At Forerunner, we invest at the intersection of invention and culture. We study big shifts in what tech can do and what consumers want. When these shifts collide, it provides the rare moments that reshape entire markets and build category-defining businesses.
Right now, AI’s ascension is paired with consumers increasingly expecting far more assistance and quality from what they invest their time and money in. This creates a moment for every category, sector, and company to be reimagined. This creative stage is what innovators live for. Our new early-stage fund is dedicated to this time of imagination and development that will bridge what humans want with what AI will be able to do.
– Kirsten Green, founder and partner of Forerunner Ventures
