Collab Holdings

For fifteen years we’ve been backing companies where strong values and strong economics reinforce each other.

Along the way, we kept meeting founders who had built amazing companies — profitable, beloved, growing — but felt trapped by a capital structure that didn’t align with their ambition. They were building for consistency over speed, and loyalty over scale. They believe that protecting what makes something great is how you make it last — and that making it last is how you make it compound.

Historically, that conviction hasn’t had a capital partner that matches it.

Today we’re announcing our answer: Collab Holdings, a new private equity strategy designed to be a long-term home for extraordinary consumer brands. We view this as a natural extension of our long-standing focus on consumer, and a compliment to the venture investing we’ve always done.

I wrote about how we got here on our blog:

A few months ago I was in Northern California, visiting a company we’ve known for years. They make one product. They’ve made it the same way for decades. Their customers are borderline religious about it. The business is profitable, growing steadily, and has been for a long time.

Over dinner, the founder told me something I’ve now heard in some version from at least a dozen founders over the past fifteen years.

“I have investors who need to sell. I don’t want to sell. And there’s no one in the middle.”

She didn’t want to go public. She didn’t want to get rolled up by private equity. She didn’t want a strategic acquirer who’d strip the thing down to a margin optimization exercise. She just wanted to keep building the company she’d already built, with a partner who saw the same horizon she did.

I didn’t have a great answer for her. Not yet...

Read the full post here: Collab Holdings: A Different Approach to Private Equity for the Best Consumer Brands →

Collab Blog

As the world gets faster, more synthetic, more algorithmically optimized, people reach for things that feel slow, crafted, and real. The companies that serve this instinct represent one of the most interesting opportunities in consumer investing.

These companies will use AI. They’ll use every tool available to them. But the core of what makes these brands great isn’t a technology advantage, it’s a human one. And that’s exactly the kind of advantage that compounds over time.

— Craig Shapiro
Founder, Collaborative Fund

You can read more about this news at Inc.