Inspired Team
In short: As AI makes intelligence, software, and parts of labor more abundant, we believe people will increasingly crave physical space, real human connection, and trusted relationships. We see opportunities for founders building the experiences, infrastructure, and communities around those needs.
We invest at the frontier of deep tech, quantum computing, physical AI, and the compute infrastructure that will power the next decade of intelligence. Being that close to where AI is heading made us start asking a different question years ago, and it’s one we keep coming back to: in a world where intelligence, software, and even labor become abundant, how will people want to spend their time?
As we’ve debated this over the years, three things kept coming up: physical space, real human connection, and the trusted relationships and networks people build around both. These are the things that stay scarce while everything else gets cheap and plentiful in the age of AI. Think about the workout class you keep showing up to, not just for the workout, but because the instructor knows your name and the people next to you notice when you’re gone. Or the pull of being in a stadium on the night of an important game, shoulder to shoulder with strangers who care about the same thing you do. Neither of those is really about the exercise or the score. People leaning into moments like that, on purpose, is what we mean by the experiential consumer.
The instinct might be that as AI and technology get more capable, people retreat further into convenience and automation. We’re seeing signs of the opposite. The more abundant intelligence gets, the more people seem to crave what it cannot manufacture: a specific place, a person you trust, and an experience that only you can have in a fleeting moment.
Why Now
1. Experience spending is outgrowing spending on nonessential goods
McKinsey’s State of the Consumer 2026 report points to a shift that looks more durable than a short-term rebound. The global experiences market grew more than three times as fast as nonessential goods between 2023 and 2025. [1]
Ask most people what they actually want more of in their life right now, and very few say more stuff. It’s usually something closer to a night that actually felt good, a class, or a trip they’re still thinking about a week later.
There’s a real psychological reason for that. A new pair of shoes loses much of its emotional charge as you get used to it. A memory can work differently. Research suggests people often continue to value experiences as they revisit and share them, while the initial excitement of a material purchase tends to fade. [2] The spending data feels like it’s catching up to something people intrinsically know.
2. Third places have been disappearing just as the need for them has grown
A 2025 study using Census tract-level data found a rapid decline in “third place” availability, meaning informal gathering spots outside home and work, between 2019 and 2021. Losses were sharpest in socially vulnerable and rural communities. [3]
At the same time, the share of Americans reporting no close friends rose from 12% in 2021 to 17% in 2024, according to the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life. [4]
The response is already visible. Run clubs, cold plunge and wellness clubs, and niche membership communities are rebuilding reasons to gather in physical space. Some observers have started calling this “friction-maxxing,” a conscious choice to make the effort to show up in person instead of defaulting to frictionless, screen-mediated life. [5]
3. Live and spectator experiences are commanding premium prices and capital
The clearest example is the 2026 FIFA World Cup. FIFA president Gianni Infantino said he expected revenue for the full 2023–2026 commercial cycle to surpass $15 billion. If reached, that would be more than 70% above the $7.568 billion FIFA reported for its previous four-year cycle. [6][7]
Ticket demand is telling the same story closer to home. The average get-in price for the 2026 US Open climbed to roughly $311 in mid-August, up nearly 19% from about $262 at the same point in 2025, according to TicketData figures cited in reporting on the tournament. [8] Resale prices for particular seats went further: one buyer reported seeing the same seats listed at $2,400 after they had cost $600 the previous year. [9]
Capital is following the same signal. Josh Kushner and Bob Iger agreed to buy the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal valuing the team at $12.5 billion, a record price for a sports franchise sale. [10]
Consumers and capital both seem to be voting for real-world, real-time experience at a premium.
Where We See Opportunity
Physical experience isn’t one category. It spans direct-to-consumer physical formats, the infrastructure underneath them, and the communities that form around both. Here are a few examples of companies we’ve backed and other areas where we see opportunity:
- Boutique fitness and wellness build some of the most loyal, obsessive communities in consumer. Arketa is the operating system for wellness businesses, handling booking, payments, marketing, and more for boutique studios. It’s the infrastructure underpinning that wider movement. Studio owners talk to each other, so growth can compound through the same networks that make the community itself sticky. Class-based formats have also become a recurring social experience for people looking for connection. Arketa is riding the creator economy directly. Instructors with real followings are increasingly standing up their own studios rather than teaching for someone else, and Arketa can become the operating system when they do. You don’t have to own the four walls to sit at the center of this shift. [11]
- Consumers want a good deal without the guesswork, but the experience is half of the value. Buywander buys excess returns from Amazon, Target, Home Depot, and other major retailers and resells them through online auctions, with every item starting at $1 and customers picking up at a local warehouse. It turns a warehouse pickup into an experience: bidding in real time, chasing a deal, and picking it up yourself, more like a treasure hunt than a transaction. It’s notably not a traditional four-wall retail format, and benefits from that in the business model, but it gives the consumer a unique experience. The bidding is the draw, not just the price. Average users spend about 55 minutes per session, closer to how people engage with a game than a checkout flow, and repeat customers keep coming back to do it again. It’s the direct-from-warehouse, no-middle-layer feeling, closer to the appeal of Costco or a treasure hunt at TJ Maxx than a typical storefront. [12]
- Even something as simple as food is being rebuilt around this idea. Younger consumers are choosing where to eat and drink based on what they can’t get anywhere else. Seventy-one percent of Gen Z and millennial consumers say their favorite restaurant beverages offer a flavor experience they can’t easily recreate at home, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2026 Beverage Trends report. [13] Restaurants are increasingly functioning as destinations for discovery rather than just meals. That same generation is driving interest in global and unfamiliar flavors; Gen Z has shown a particular appetite for global cuisines. [14] It’s part of why something like matcha has grown from a niche order into a global market that one research firm estimates at more than $4 billion in 2026. [15] The product on the menu still matters, but increasingly it’s the discovery of something you can’t get anywhere else that gets someone to walk in the door. The market is already validating interest in physical formats. General Atlantic participated in a $75 million investment in Blank Street, the coffee and matcha chain, at a valuation of about $650 million, roughly 30% above its previous valuation of $500 million. [16]
- Live sports have never been more of a premium. People aren’t just watching sports from home. They’re showing up in person. The WNBA broke its total attendance record during the 2026 regular season. [17] At the same time, entirely new leagues are forming around sports that never had a proper home before, and dedicated leagues are being built from scratch to meet demand. Teams and leagues also keep changing hands at record prices. The Lakers changed hands twice in a short period, most recently through the agreement valuing the team at $12.5 billion, the largest sports franchise sale price on record. [10] We’re watching closely for the layer building up around sports as it scales into a much bigger business. That could mean new ways for fans to invest in and engage with the sports they love, the technology and infrastructure that supports it, the brands and experiences being built around fandom itself, or the teams and leagues themselves.
Looking Ahead
We think this shift toward experience is only going to accelerate from here. As more of daily life gets automated or mediated by a screen, the businesses that win will be the ones that give people a reason to leave the house and be around other people, on purpose. Physical, in-person experience offers something AI cannot fully reproduce, and we expect capital to keep pursuing that opportunity.
This thesis is not a hedge against our conviction in AI, and it’s not a bet against automation. It’s the natural second half of it. Being close to where AI is heading is what got us asking, years ago, where people would lean in harder, and this is where that thinking has landed today. We want to back the founders building for that natural next effect. If you’re building something in experiential consumer and leading this shift, we’d love to talk.
Sources
[1] McKinsey, State of the Consumer 2026: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/state-of-consumer
[2] Cornell Chronicle, research on experiences and material purchases: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2010/03/study-shows-experiences-are-better-possessions
[3] Axios, reporting on research into third places: https://www.axios.com/2026/07/05/loneliness-epidemic-third-places-social-infrastructure
[4] American Enterprise Institute, The Decline in American Friendship: https://www.aei.org/featured_data/the-decline-in-american-friendship
[5] Forbes, Community as the New Currency: Inside 2026’s Third-Space Boom: https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliviashalhoup/2026/07/29/community-as-the-new-currency-inside-2026s-third-space-boom
[6] FIFA, Infantino’s 2023–2026 revenue projection: https://inside.fifa.com/organisation/president/news/gianni-infantino-world-cup-usd-15-billion-revenue-members
[7] FIFA, 2019–2022 actual revenue: https://publications.fifa.com/en/annual-report-2022/finances/2019-2022-cycle-in-review/2019-2022-budget-comparison/
[8] Yahoo Sports, US Open ticket prices and TicketData figures: https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/us-open-ticket-prices-spark-165750622.html
[9] Front Office Sports, reported US Open seat-price example: https://frontofficesports.com/article/us-open-ticket-prices-explode/
[10] Yahoo Sports, Lakers purchase agreement: https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/josh-kushner-bob-iger-buy-155331722.html
[11] Inspired Capital, Why We Invested: Arketa: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/insights/why-we-invested-arketa
[12] Inspired Capital, Why We Invested: Buywander: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/insights/why-we-invested-buywander
[13] National Restaurant Association, 2026 beverage trends: https://restaurant.org/research-and-media/media/press-releases/menu-transformation-beverages-move-from-add-ons-to-restaurant-growth-drivers/
[14] National Restaurant Association, Gen Z restaurant preferences: https://restaurant.org/education-and-resources/resource-library/gen-z-influences-can-shape-your-restaurant-menus-and-marketing-strategies/
[15] Market Data Forecast, global matcha market estimate: https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/matcha-market
[16] Financial Times, Blank Street funding and valuation: https://www.ft.com/content/c202d7aa-481a-466b-b34f-2c4451f787a5
[17] Front Office Sports, 2026 WNBA attendance: https://frontofficesports.com/article/wnba-continues-attendance-viewership-growth/