Founder @tactilevc. 20 year veteran investor across @accel, @batteryventures & @forerunnervc. Seeker of network effects & taquerias.
San Francisco, CA
Joined July 2009
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If you want to see the report in its entirety, it’s here: tactilevc.com/notes/state-of…
We named the firm Tactile for a reason. Progress should be something you can feel. Does it actually make life better? Can it be a sustainable business? Without scale and resilience, any benefit will be fleeting.
Technological progress isn’t the same as human progress. To us, it starts and ends with putting people first.
With AI, we now have infinite knowledge, but have we gotten smarter? With so many versions of the truth, knowing who to trust has never been harder.
Closing that gap is essential to realizing the promise.
The future is rapidly becoming the now. But is it the future we want? We’re not here to accept the future. We’re here to shape it.
No doctor prescribes a whole-body scan for a “healthy” person. No insurer covers one. While expensive today, @prenuvo is optimizing the cost curve to become broadly accessible across incomes.
We used to hand our health to the system. Now we want a hand on the wheel. People used to get 10 minutes with a doctor a year; AI makes it possible to have one continually in your pocket.
At the same time as we’re seeing science fiction become reality, commonly held beliefs around vaccines are up for debate again.
Living longer used to be luck, genetics and making it out of childhood in one piece. Now we have a way of proactively shifting the curve.
06: For years, healthcare was a conversation between one’s employer, doctor and insurance company. But people don’t want to wait to get sick before the system kicks in, so they’re investing their own personal capital in their well-being. AI is making something so personal, personalized.
Six forces define the divide. The sixth is where we have seen, and expect to keep seeing, the most change over the next decade.
The divide isn’t one rift. It’s both economic and cultural. Widened by technology.
This gap isn’t just a divide. It’s an opening. People don’t adopt new solutions when the status quo works; they adopt when changes are required.
The closing chapter of our State of Consumer 2026 report opens with the Longevity Economy – people investing in themselves to live better, longer.
It ends with the thread tying all six forces together: a widening trust gap, and our role to help close it. We’re focused on a future designed around people. This means backing founders who are fixated on utilizing novel technology to solve for human progress. This might seem like a given, but it isn’t always these days.
Congratulations team @BoomPopHQ. The best acquisitions start as partnerships!
Thank you to @healeycypher for being one of the first @tactilevc founders. Look forward to finding more ways to work together in your new capacity.
Navan said Wednesday it has acquired BoomPop, an AI-powered platform for planning corporate meetings and events. The acquisition is the latest move in Navan’s consolidation strategy, bringing meetings and events spending into the same platform where companies already book travel and manage expenses.
Navan declined to disclose the acquisition price.
The business travel platform partnered with BoomPop earlier this year, and the acquisition repeats an apparent Navan pattern: acquiring the partner after customer demand proved out.
hubs.li/Q04x5jPz0
The problem started when one mode became seen as LP friendly & the other as GP friendly. Incentivizing liquidity is universally good.
95% of check writers today have never seen a material carry check. It is hard to ignore the impact that has on subsequent fund size bloat.
The big change not discussed enough was when LPs pushed more funds towards european versus amercian carry models. It removed the incentive to take the liquidity event to return half the fund.
@PeterJ_Walker have you guys ever cut the DPI data by carry waterfall type?
Thorne acquired for 5.8x revenue; Airtable acquired for 2.7x.
The consumer category seems to be alive and well.
P&G just acquired Thorne for $3.8B - a massive win for Thorne's management team and L Catterton.
Thorne will do ~$650M in sales in 2026 (30% YoY), representing a 5.8x multiple. Very good price for Thorne, suggesting this was a competitive process and P&G really wanted to get a deal done.
Thorne is the #2 seller of creatine on Amazon, doing about $100M/year on the platform alone. I'd estimate their current creatine business is probably about $150M -$200M and growing quickly, around about 25-30% of their total business.
Much respect, great outcome, good for the industry...and we're coming for that creatine business 🤝🫡
100%. Get the assets with real distribution and then go back and buy the AI companies that have good tech, but fail to launch.
Haven't seen many folks comment on the deal being ALL CASH. Not sure if it was an option to get stock, but as a later stage investor getting 1x back, I'd much rather get the upside of Bending Spoons stock versus just getting my money back.
Maybe that option wasn't on the table or maybe liquidity just gets that much of a premium right now?
