How We Invest

We invest in consumer brands at cultural and behavioral tipping points. Capital + capabilities to build enduring companies.

Investment Framework
Five things we underwrite
01 Team — Quality-focused

Consumer obsession + domain expertise + distance traveled. Do they inspire belief? Operate with velocity and integrity? Do they want Listen's active participation — not just capital?

Kill criteria: If team quality is lacking, pass.

02 Market / Tension — Pass/Fail

Large, growing market with category creation or tipping point. We look for a visceral cultural or behavioral tension — urgency and immediate value recognition.

Why now? Structural shifts in tech, regulation, or behavior. An attractive chessboard: fragmented market, weak incumbents.

03 Unfair Advantage — Moat-focused

At least one defensible advantage:

  • Product: 10x better or net new — IP, data, switching costs
  • Business model / Channel: supply chain, distribution, network effects
  • Brand: cultural relevance, emotional differentiation
04 Unit Economics — Capital efficiency

Current momentum — traction, growth rate. LTV via margins + frequency: 50%+ gross margin, repeat behavior.

Path to $100M on $30M capital. CAC payback, profitability trajectory. We want companies that earn the right to grow — not ones that need scale to make the math work.

05 Portfolio Fit — Strategic

Can Listen lead and get 15–25% ownership? Is the chessboard and exit landscape attractive?

Does Listen's value-add — brand, community, destigmatization — increase exit value? $250M–$750M exit realistic via strategics and timing.

Deal Process
From signal to partnership
Identify
Source
Diligence
Underwrite
Invest
Build

Thematic research across our core verticals — FAM, Women's Health, Aging Gracefully, Vice Wellness. Listen Consumer Club and subject matter experts surface early signals. Warm deal referrals from our founder network.

Targeted sourcing against thematic research. Founder network + referrals. Inbound — but the best deals usually come from operators we already know.

Q&A with founders. SME diligence and in-person meetings. Consumer interviews through Listen Labs — we talk to the actual customer, not just the cap table.

Consumer + brand analysis: positioning, resonance, social listening. Cohorts + unit economics powered by Listen Cohort Software. Framework memo, reference checks, internal debate, kill criteria. Structure (equity or Fast Forward). Then — break bread.

Negotiate terms. Close. We move fast, write clean terms, and don't re-trade. Our reputation is our distribution — founders talk.

Brand + positioning. Cohort-driven decision making. Active partnership — we don't sit on boards to observe, we sit on boards to work.

Our Tools
Built to give founders an edge
📊
Cohort Software
Transaction-level cohort analysis. CM2-based LTV, CAC payback, retention curves. The operating system for how we underwrite and how our founders make decisions.
Analytics
🧪
Listen Labs
Consumer interviews + qualitative research. FAM, occasions, motivations. We talk to the customer before we write the check — and keep talking after.
Research
🔊
Listening Dept.
Ongoing consumer insight engine. Surfaces trends, tensions, and opportunities — the ears to the ground that feed our thematic research and sourcing.
Insights
🔍
GSO Series
Get Smart On — instant industry and social listening on any prospect category. Gives us deep context before the first call.
Intelligence
⚡
Fast Forward
Hybrid capital — debt + equity upside. Built for capital-efficient growth. When a company doesn't need a full equity round but needs fuel to scale.
Capital
🎓
Listener Program
Listen hosts students for 6+ months, integrating them into our investment process — thematic generation, sourcing, deal evaluation, and portfolio support. 67% placement rate into VC.
Talent

We're a small, concentrated fund. We partner deeply.