Forerunner’s Green: ‘Virality’ Won’t Last for Some Consumer AI Startups

For more than a decade, Forerunner Ventures founder Kirsten Green has had a front-row seat on what’s hot or not in consumer startups. After a particularly brutal period for these startups when interest rates spiked, investors like Green are especially optimistic—largely because they’ve seen artificial intelligence breakthroughs create multibillion-dollar consumer businesses for OpenAI and Perplexity.

“Typically, there is more money than amazing startups or exponential businesses,” Green said on the eve of the San Francisco firm’s first-ever conference. Now, “there’s more opportunity” than the firm can realistically invest in.