Brian Nichols is the co-founder of Angel Squad, a community where you’ll learn how to angel invest and get a chance to invest as little as $1k into Hustle Fund's top performing early-stage startups

Kirsten Green spent the early part of her career as an equity research analyst at Banc of America Securities covering publicly traded retail and consumer companies. She earned her CPA and CFA certifications. That analytical foundation, applied to understanding how and why consumers choose products, became the lens she brought to venture capital.

She started making angel investments before founding Forerunner Ventures formally in 2012. The consumer internet category was not yet seen as a venture-worthy thesis at that scale. Most venture firms were focused on enterprise software, social networks, or mobile apps. Green saw something others missed: the combination of e-commerce infrastructure maturation, social media distribution, and the smartphone meant that a new generation of consumer brands could reach customers directly, without retail shelf space, and build businesses with better unit economics than traditional retail.

The Forerunner Thesis and Portfolio

Kirsten Green investments at Forerunner have generated one of the most concentrated runs of consumer brand hits in venture capital history. Dollar Shave Club, the subscription razor company, was an early Forerunner investment. Unilever acquired it in 2016 for $1 billion in one of the highest-multiple exits in DTC brand history. Warby Parker, the eyewear brand, went public in 2021 at a $6.8 billion valuation. Bonobos, the menswear brand, was acquired by Walmart. Hims & Hers, the telehealth and wellness brand, went public through a SPAC. Chime, the digital banking platform, is the most valuable digital bank in the United States with a valuation exceeding $25 billion.

Forerunner has invested in nearly 150 companies and raised over $2 billion in total. Fund VII closed at $500 million in November 2024. Green currently serves on the boards of Faire, Glossier, Ritual, Prose, Daydream, and Balance.

Eric Bahn of Hustle Fund has noted that the best consumer investors have a genuine product instinct and a theory of why consumers change behavior, not just a database of comparable transactions. Green built her entire career on that kind of instinct, starting with watching which products sold in which retail environments as an analyst in the early 2000s. Angel Squad members learning to evaluate consumer brands apply similar lenses. Join the community at hustlefund.vc/squad.

Faire and the B2B Marketplace Extension

Green has also extended Forerunner's thesis into B2B marketplaces where the consumer is still the underlying driver. Faire, the wholesale marketplace connecting independent retailers with emerging brands, is the clearest example. The platform sits at the intersection of the retail industry she analyzed as a stock analyst for years and the DTC brand ecosystem she has been investing in since 2012.

She currently sits on Faire's board. The platform has raised over $1 billion in funding and reached a multi-billion dollar valuation. For independent retailers, Faire solves a discovery and ordering problem: finding new brands without the sourcing infrastructure large chains take for granted. For brands, it provides access to a national network of indie retailers without building a direct sales force.

The Faire bet reflects something important about how Forerunner's thesis has evolved: the interesting consumer infrastructure plays are not always the brand itself but the platform that enables the next generation of brands to reach the right buyers.

The Consumer AI Turn

Green has been explicit about evolving Forerunner's thesis to include AI-powered consumer experiences. Fund VII's active deployment in 2025 and 2026 includes Agentio, an agentic marketplace; Monarch Money, an AI-powered personal finance app; Novig, a prediction markets platform; and Outsmart, an AI tool for higher education. Green views AI as a continuation of the consumer behavior shift she identified in 2012, not a rupture from it: AI tools that actually save consumers time or money will win adoption in the same way that DTC brands won adoption by removing friction from purchasing.

The question she has been asked most often since 2022 is whether consumer investing is dead given the macro environment and the failure of several hyped consumer brands. Her answer is nuanced: the category is harder, the market is more selective, but the underlying thesis has not changed. Consumers adopt products that are 10x better than the alternative. AI can enable that 10x improvement in more categories than e-commerce or mobile apps ever could.

All Raise and the Diversity Infrastructure

Green is a founding member of All Raise, the nonprofit that works to accelerate the success of women in venture capital. She has been named to Forbes' Midas List for nine consecutive years, was named VC of the Year at TechCrunch's 2017 Crunchies, and appeared on Fortune's World's 100 Most Powerful Women and Time's 100 Most Influential People lists.

Shiyan Koh of Hustle Fund has made the point that the investors who last the longest and build the best records over cycles are those who truly love the work of understanding consumers, not just the returns. Green's 20-plus years as both an analyst and an investor reflects that kind of real commitment to the category. 

Angel Squad members who invest in consumer brands and B2C marketplaces will find her published thinking on consumer behavior one of the most useful reference libraries in venture. See more at hustlefund.vc/squad.