Sasha Trower, Proponent of Consumer Tech and Early Runna Backer, Raises a Staggering £11.5M in Solo GP Fund

Bucking the traditional sentiment among venture capitalists, Sasha Trower is proving that the consumer tech market is far from deceased. As an early supporter of Runna, the running app that was snapped up by Strava, Trower firmly believes in the vitality and potential profitability of the consumer tech sector. From e-commerce and digital marketplaces to consumer-friendly Software as a Service (SaaS) like Canva and Notion, she highlights the myriad opportunities latent in this domain.

Trower’s investment in Runna during her tenure at Venrex emerged handful at the moment of closing the fund. The news of Runna’s acquisition boosted the fund by an additional £1 million.

She beams a light on the often misunderstood concept of churn. Trower argues that high churn is not necessarily a determinant of failure, as she experienced with Runna. She affirms that customer retention is not the be-all and end-all, especially if the business is witnessing a strong word-of-mouth growth and acquiring new users organically.

Trower puts considerable emphasis on ‘product market fit’, terming it the ‘holy grail’. She believes that once a startup achieves this fit, the capital it raises will simply act as a catalyst to speed up their growth.