Collaborative Fund

Craig Shapiro founded Collaborative Fund in New York in 2010 on a conviction that has since moved from the margin to the center of investment discourse: that the companies best positioned to generate exceptional long-term returns are not simply those building the most defensible technology products, but those solving problems that society actually needs solved. The thesis was not altruistic. It was analytical. Shapiro's argument was that the forces of consumer preference, regulatory pressure, demographic shift, and technology capability were converging in a way that would reward companies operating at the intersection of financial return and positive impact — and penalize those that ignored the convergence.

The portfolio generated by that thesis is, in retrospect, one of the most accurate maps available of where that convergence has run hottest. Lyft, before the ride-sharing market existed as a category. Kickstarter, before crowdfunding had proven itself as a durable creative economy institution. Beyond Meat, before alternative protein was a consumer staple. Duolingo, before language learning had been reimagined as a mobile product. Chobani, WHOOP, Sweetgreen, and Zipline — a succession of companies that are now household names and that were, at the moment of Collaborative Fund's investment, either unproven or unfashionable.

The firm now manages over $1 billion in assets across a partnership that includes Craig Shapiro, Morgan Housel (author of The Psychology of Money, one of the best-selling investment books of the past decade), Guy Vidra (former CEO of The New Republic and senior executive at Yahoo), Sophie Bakalar, and Andrew Montgomery. The team's diversity of operational background — media, technology, consumer, policy — reflects a conviction that understanding where for-profit and for-good converge requires the perspective of people who have worked in both modes. The internal framework known as "the Villain Test" — does this company make the world better, or does it require a villain's worldview to make it worse? — is a heuristic that is both simple and, in application, remarkably productive.