Forerunner

When the momentum speaks for itself: Huge congrats to team ōURA on the fresh $75M at a $5B valuation, including a partnership with Dexcom to deepen care within metabolic health! https://lnkd.in/ggVeE3Ku

“The problem is information overload. The amount of input that human brains are getting every second of every day is something the human species has never experienced — too many pages, too many products. At Daydream, the way we’re thinking about solving this problem is creating what’s in essence ChatGPT for shopping. If you have the ability to ask anything you want, we have the ability to help you.” Julie Bornstein and the Daydream are uniquely suited to transform the way we shop for the AI era, a massive opportunity given that the experience hasn't meaningful changed in decades. Look out for Daydream, formally debuting next year! https://lnkd.in/ggCq9fDS

Announcing Leland's $12M Series A led by Forerunner! Forerunner has an incredible track record of backing iconic consumer brands and marketplaces like Warby Parker, Chime, Glossier, Inc., ōURA, Faire, Zola, The Expert, and others. We couldn't be more excited to welcome Eurie Kim to the board and partner with her and Forerunner to take Leland to the next level. Also participating in the round are GSV Ventures, inVest Ventures, and our early investors like FJ Labs, Contrary, Peterson Ventures, and GSBackers. We’re also proud that dozens of Leland coaches and customers participated, in addition to leading marketplace founders, operators, and angels from companies like Instacart, Handshake, LinkedIn, Pluralsight, Mercado Libre, and others. With this fresh capital and support, we're well positioned to accelerate our vision of unlocking human potential by making the world's expertise more accessible. In the past year alone, our coaches have helped hundreds of thousands of people in over 70 countries break into top schools or companies, develop new skills, prepare for interviews or tests, and pursue goals across dozens of unique categories. While a fundraise is never a destination, it certainly represents an opportunity to reflect on the progress we’ve made and thank the community who has helped us get this far. So, THANK YOU! We know the biggest opportunity is ahead of us, and we’re excited to be building a world-class team to go after it. If you want to join us, we're hiring. if you want to partner with us, shoot me a DM. And if you are interested in working with a coach or coaching the next generation, we'd love to have you in our community. Big thank you to Deborah Quazzo, Ben Capell, Kyle Harrison, Eric Tarczynski, Jason Bornstein, Lauri J. Moore, Karen Chi, Glenn Borok, Jeff Weinstein, Jose Marin, Jen Yang-Wong, Jason Chen, Taylor Jones, ilana stern, Aaron Skonnard, Gary Williams, Martin Rudigier, and the many others who have made this possible through your support! Here's to the next chapter of helping people reach their most ambitious goals. (TechCrunch coverage in comments)

Yesterday I joined Chris Britt at Money2020 for a keynote discussion on how he’s steering Chime into one of the most durable, important fintech companies of our time. Many don’t realize that 60% of our nation lives paycheck-to-paycheck, a majority demographic that is very poorly served by the legacy banking industry. Chris often says that he’s not out to disrupt banking, but rather operate within the highly regulated existing banking system to make it work better for everyday Americans. In doing so, Chime has been the pioneer of innovations that are increasingly adopted by larger banks, whose hands are being forced into order to remain competitive. Chime was the first to offer fee-free overdraft features (SpotMe), helping members avoid over $30B in potential overdraft fees, as well as the newly introduced MyPay — an instant payment feature that helps members avoid high-interest credit cards, payday loans, or overdraft fees while waiting two weeks for paychecks to clear (which is 70%+ of the $10 trillion in wages and salaries). By doing the right thing for consumers — and building from a place of fundamental empathy and firsthand experience, with meticulous regulatory standards — Chime has become a generational company. And plenty more innovation, scale, and milestones for this company to come!

Restaurant owners on Table22: "It's like having another week of revenue in a month and I didn't have to pay any additional costs." Big congrats to this team on the series A from Lightspeed, and for extending the revenue of restaurants nationwide: https://lnkd.in/g8qUFzx9

KiwiCo, Inc., one of our earliest investments, is an excellent example of the magic that happens from being heads-down building a fundamentally better product for a highly engaged set of consumers (in this case, moms who are invested in their kids' development). With only $10M raised in their trajectory, they've walked the walk on delivering real, durable growth (long before that was trendy). Congrats to this hardworking and endlessly impressive team! https://lnkd.in/g_tyDbpX

Personalization might sound like a trite concept in Silicon Valley. And it is — we’ve been talking about it for over a decade. But the promise of personalization has never really been delivered on. When I think of highly personalized digital experiences, Instagram’s ads and the TikTok feed are probably the most notable examples. There is still endless white space. With AI, builders have the opportunity to truly (and finally) deliver on the opportunity in personalized services. Because at its core, the promise of Gen AI is to effectively personalize our digital worlds, offering up insights with more comprehensive context than any one person could have themselves and taking broad swaths of legwork off of our plates by effectively performing tasks on our behalf. It was wonderful to join so many talented and ambitious women at The Information WTF Summit this week to share more about this opportunity, as well as the complicated yet optimistic point we’re at in venture, and why I think the exit market might look a lot more interesting over the next year. Well done Jessica E. Lessin and the entire Information team on such a thoughtful and energizing (can't-miss!) event, and thank you for having me and Amy Griffin on stage! https://lnkd.in/g96BCvms

"We’re building the next forever beauty brand, which means we’re playing the long game. We are profitable and the business is sustainable." Glossier, Inc. CEO Kyle Leahy on growth, profitability and selling one bottle of You every 20 seconds: https://lnkd.in/ed8Afk7V

A new kind of creator fund incentivizing a much-needed goal: more time together IRL, and more time making new friends. Well done Andy Dunn and the entire Pie team on innovating the model for this: https://lnkd.in/eSG9z-kw

Glossier You has been a unique kind of success. A few years ago, it would have been incomprehensible to think that people would buy a fragrance online before trying it themselves…but Glossier’s magnetic energy and lock-tight relationship with customers has flipped this on its head — so much so that upon launching in retail at Sephora, it instantly become the #1 selling fragrance at the retail giant. Today, Glossier is expanding the You universe with the launch of Rêve and Doux, two extensions of You that build on the same lovable base notes, but with distinct new scents. This team's sheer creativity and tireless execution continue to work wonders.