The 8 Billion Reasons We Believe in Consumer
Authors: Ashley Lundström, Preet Khalsa, Rania Belkahia
There you have it. At EQT Ventures we are deep believers in consumer because of all of us. Because we want many of the same things, and yet we want 8 billion different things.
We humans have always turned to technology to make life easier — more playful, less painful. We solve our own problems, and then barely remember how things were before. Technology will always be about us. About humanity.
“Consumer” as a venture category is unsurprisingly very close to our hearts. Our team — all former founders and operators — cut our teeth at iconic companies like Spotify, King, Booking.com, Meta, Toca Boca, CRED, Delivery Hero, HotelTonight, and Klarna. As investors we’ve backed household names like Wolt, Nothing, Cleo, Small Giant Games, Anyfin, Pelago, Dott, Wildhero, Buena, Formo, Iris, 1X, Popcore, Natural Cycles, Instabee, Holidu, Peanut, and Min Doktor. We love seeing beautiful, meaningful products in the hands of millions of people.
But venture is about timing. The way consumers interact with technology is changing faster than ever, which is why we believe now is an exceptional time to build. Here’s our why now:👇
- Culture. Young generations have always said out with the old. Today tho… Gen Z and Gen Alpha are orders of magnitude more connected and more lonely (yep, at the same time) than Boomers, Gen X and Millennials — who are a transitional generation. The formative years of today’s youth are vastly different with respect to exposure to tech — bringing literally unprecedented expectations. We are convinced this is white space where completely new generation-defining companies will emerge.
- The most impactful tech transformation in a lifetime. The holy grail of personalization at scale is on the horizon. LLMs, genAI, connected devices, etc., are unlocking magical product experiences. This can mean entirely new adoption and retention levels, network effects, scale advantages, and moats. Voilà — across learning, food, health, entertainment and travel, the economics of building products and businesses are being redrawn, paving the way for new winners.
- Data is eve-ry-where. Hyper-precise data–from location, browsing, watching, listening, shopping, fitness to granular health and biometric data — is everywhere. Gen Z has embraced sharing, especially location and activity sharing, at unprecedented levels. Businesses that use data well will incentivize users to generate even more, offering better experiences, and the flywheel is off to the races.
- Consumers (and their wallets) are ruthless. Today, both investors and consumers face a real cost of capital, making markets hyper-honest. Builders get real feedback, fast, about whether there’s authentic interest in their product, and investors flock to strong unit economics. Real companies solving real problems are the (only) winners.
- Speed. The tools needed to ship an MVP are more accessible every day. Operating experience and open source tooling are also compounding, meaning time to market — and time to feedback — has never been shorter. Small ambitious teams have never been able to come so far, so fast.
So, what are we seeing and expecting? We see change across 3 frontiers.
Human x Human Interactions
🤣 Real Social
51% of U.S. teens spend over 4 hours a day on social media and many admit that social media has negative effects. Social networks became entertainment networks that are far from authentic — let alone social — and while online communities can be rich, they’re still behind a screen. We believe in the opportunity for new social networks to emerge, countering the loneliness epidemic and restoring human connectivity. Something we all want, and need.
Name names: Howbout, Locket, Timeleft, Airbuds, Ten Ten, Tape, Closer, Partiful, Pie, Vibes
🎮 Social x Gaming
85% U.S. teens play video games, with 40% of them playing daily. 72% of teens who game say they play to spend time with others, and most of them have made friends online. Teens exchange their gaming handles as their contact information, while Gen Alpha sometimes doesn’t even know their own phone number. Free-to-play games like Roblox and Minecraft brought an entire generation into gaming and defined gaming as social, while Fortnite is turning esports into a true mass market phenomenon. Unsurprisingly, where there is “social” consumers will find outlets for expression- which also explains why virtual goods are becoming highly normalized and a material spend for young users.
On it: Roblox, Hiber, Noice, Slay, Frever, Goals, Ray Browser, Toca Boca, Zepeto, Dreams, Rec Room, Slay
❣️ Relationships and Companionship Dynamics
Generations are postponing family-building, their interest in dating apps is declining and Gen Z is more conscious and proactive than older generations. They’re also navigating relationships through entirely new mediums and identities compared to older generations, so it’s no surprise they’re seek more support from therapists and emerging AI copilots.
On it: Paired, Meeno, Together, Gigi, Doubble, Bumble (moving in that direction), Meela
🤳 Influencer Economy
Influencers have become trusted advisors in consumers’ buyer decisions. Over half of U.S. consumers surveyed admitted to buying something based on an influencer’s recommendation every month. Advertising and marketing have been forever changed. However, tools that empower and enfranchise these influencers, and provide connectivity between brands, products, and creators, are still in high demand.
Empowering the powerful: Iris, Passes, Argil, Patreon, LTK, Maven, Stationhead
♻️ Circular Economy
Young consumers care more about sustainability than ever, and are willing to put their money where their mouth is. Circular economy is benefiting both from the consumer demand for sustainability and pressures of a tough economic climate amidst ever increasing demanding lifestyles. Thankfully, the second hand economy for just about everything is starting to bloom, as “used” is the new normal. Unfortunately, the logistical bottlenecks remail real — so companies removing frictions have potential to grow quickly, and make an impact.
On it: Vinted, Depop, Maiapp, Haz, thredUP, Reflaunt, Lizee, Faume
🔎 Commerce Discovery, Including Food and Travel
In a world where access to brands, sports, travel, entertainment etc, is ubiquitous and fragmented, recommendation and discovery become powerful positions. Combine this with the role of the influencer in the purchasing decision, and the retail ecosystem as we know it can and likely will be transformed entirely.
Solving this: Flip, Minoan Experience, WhatNot, Curated, Mindtrip, Daydream, Tilt, Voggt
Human x Machine Interactions
🔋Energy Transition
Over the next decade, a critical mass of households will move towards the decarbonization of their lives and electrification of their homes — replacing their cars with EVs, installing solar panels and using digital dashboards to monitor energy consumption and maintenance. Consumer platforms facilitating this planet-saving shift will, we hope, create the planet-wide impact we aim to be partners in.
Change makers: Tibber, Greenely, Arcadia, Wildhero, Ohmconnect, Ever, Cardino,
⌚ Wearables & Connected Devices
Wearables, hardware, even humanoids running in the background (or foreground, miniaturized, and wherever else) now can operate with high-precision context, including what is important and happening around us. This opens the door for highly elegant end-user applications and may even opportunities to free us from our cell phones.
At it: Limitless, 1x, Nothing, Oura, Ray-Ban Meta
💊 A Generation that Walks the Talk on Preventive Health
Gen Z takes both mental and physical preventative health seriously. Moreover, Gen Z is more open to sharing health data and talking about it. This mindset shift combined with no-effort data collection via ambient hardware and AI-powered personalized nudges, creates real opportunity for mass market preventive health solutions.
On it: Whoop, Oura, Rokk, Ultrahuman, Runna, Sugar.health, Enerjoy
🎤 Voice first
Voice is authentic and quick — no wonder voice notes are used by 80%+ of Gen Z. With the improvements in many underlying technologies, the medium is more viable than ever, creating opportunities for brand new services and interfaces with our favorite products and services.
On it: Hume, Nothing, Vocalz, Discord, Buz
🧑💻 Catering to the Parents
Boomers and Gen X are also more tech literate than the generations before them, and they sit on time, disposable income, and face caring for their own aging parents. We foresee many successful new products and services for these specific audiences ranging from social and entertainment, to health and financial services.
On it: Charlie, Retirable, Skarlett, Lottie, Helppy, Papa, Honor, Nobi
Human x “Humachine” Interactions
🐕🦺 Companions, thought partners and assistants
The ultimate right hand, a personal assistant with context, perspective, and agency, was stuff for the elite, or the movies. But today, personal assistants — vertical and horizontal — are increasingly viable, and affordable. For consumers, these will become invaluable parts of our lives. As professionals, we’ll be more efficient and we’ll spend our time differently, though TBD as to what the new mix will look like.
On it: c.ai, Milo, Heart Hands, Ei.inc, Heynox, Ceejay, trymatrin, 1x
📱 Enterprise performance meets consumer grade for the prosumer
Up until now, long tail businesses have missed out on enterprise grade tooling. However, with scalability brought by automation and AI, tooling can become relevant, and economically viable, for small businesses, micro SMEs, and prosumers.
Enfranchising the long tail has created a long list of generation-defining companies (Shopify, Uber, Wolt, Hubspot, Brex), and if the prosumer has access to enterprise grade software, the prosumer/employer/future of work landscape could look very different versus today.
Name names: Lawhive, Marbl, Mobile First Company, Infinit, Autarc, Granola, Photoroom
📚 Learning
While user-generated content and democratization of knowledge has been a great leap for mankind, we all learn differently. Personalized learning may democratize not just the long tail of knowledge but also the ability for anyone to absorb any information at an equal, personal rate.
Transforming learning: Duolingo Black, Praktika, Knowunity, Heeyo, MagicSchool, Revyze, MyEdSpace, ArtMaster, Sana
🖱️Information Retrieval
Imagine search that leverages the combination of all stored files, past conversations, own histories, and the web– search where the prompt is enriched by a personal AI assistant, and presents in the way best suited to the use case. The second brain is evolving, and has our attention.
On it: Perplexity, Sana, Mem.ai, Artu.app, Fabric.so, Mymind
⚱️ The deceased and digital eternity
Isn’t this edgy territory?! AI that has captured the living, can live on. Should it? Some think so. Rumor has it even Edison worked on this.
Experiments underway: Velveteen, Re;memory, HereAfter IA, StoryFile
We commit to an open mind. If you’re building for the 8 billion and are making the world a better place along the way, we’d love to hear from you.
/ EQT Ventures Consumer Crew
