Signal over Noise for VC and PE investment partners
Signal over Noise gives investment partners one defensible CAC and LTV definition across D2C portfolio companies, rebuilt from raw commerce and marketing data and cited to source. Cohort LTV forecasts, measured within 3.6% of actual at week four in one engagement, separate earned growth from bought growth between board meetings.By Tushar Kaul, Co-Founder · Published 22 September 2026
THE JOB
How do I diligence D2C growth metrics across a portfolio?
Every portfolio company reports CAC and LTV on its own definition, so board packs cannot be compared, and diligencing a growth claim means commissioning a data project that finishes after the decision.One brand counts reactivations as new customers. Another excludes agency fees. A third reports LTV on an orders assumption from the pre-Series A model. The portfolio dashboard sums them anyway.
ONE NUMBER
What changes when every company reports on one definition?
Cohort LTV forecast within 3.6% of actual at week four, in one engagement.
Faster, defensible investment decisions: a cohort’s value read at week four, on the company’s own raw data, on the same definition as every other company in the portfolio.
Forecast error at week four
3.6%
A measured result, not a model. UK D2C subscription health brand, seven-figure monthly acquisition spend, under NDA.
HOW IT HELPS
How does Signal over Noise help a VC or PE partner?
One defensible definition
The same CAC and LTV math across every company, cited to source.
An earlier read on growth quality
Cohort LTV forecasts at week four, not after 12 months of actuals.
Diligence that cites source
Every number traces back to raw data, not a founder’s deck.
Oversight without logins
Shared decision threads keep partners informed without stack access.
PROPOSE · APPROVE · EXECUTE · REVERSE
What does oversight look like without operating access?
The loop is reframed for governance rather than operation. The company proposes and approves its own moves; the partner gets the evidence trail and comparable numbers without touching the stack. The ledger below is a portfolio read on one definition.
01
Propose
Each move arrives with its evidence and its expected effect, cited to source.
02
Approve
You approve, change or reject. Permissions are role-scoped: spending and publishing are separate rights.
03
Execute
The approved move runs in the system it belongs to. No copy-paste, no handover.
04
Reverse
One click puts it back, and the log keeps who approved it, when, and on what evidence.
Portfolio · CAC payback, one definition
Larkmoor Supplements
Reported3.0 months
Reconstructed4.4 months
Ridgeline Coffee
Reported2.8 months
Reconstructed2.9 months
Hollow Oak Pet Co
Reported4.1 months
Reconstructed6.8 months
Illustrative example on invented brands. The figures are not from a customer.
MEASURED
What has it measured for a portfolio operator?
A measured result
Answers in seconds instead of hours.
A measured result, not a model. UK D2C pet food brand, one place to ask the business anything across Notion, GitHub and Klaviyo, under NDA.
Time to answer
Hours → seconds
FAQ
What do investment partners ask before a portfolio rollout?
One governed definition applied to each company’s raw data. Each portfolio company runs its own workspace and its data stays inside it; the metrics are built the same way, so the comparison is real.
Cohort LTV is the contribution a group of customers acquired in the same period has generated to date, built from their real order and subscription history. A cohort LTV forecast projects that curve forward; in one engagement it was measured within 3.6% of actual at week four.
Yes, as the fastest route to defensible CAC and LTV on a target’s own data. Core connection takes 30 minutes for the standard subscription stack, and the first approved moves run inside two weeks. Every figure cites the rows it came from.
Core connection takes 30 minutes for the standard subscription stack, and the first approved moves run inside two weeks. The systems are its commerce and marketing stack: Shopify, Klaviyo, the subscription platform, Meta and Google. The company owns the workspace and its approvals; the fund is a guest with scoped rights.
Blended CAC is total acquisition spend divided by the new customers acquired in the period, rebuilt from raw spend and order data on one governed definition rather than taken from any single ad platform’s attribution.
From $500/month per company. Subject to company size, usage and number of seats. No lock-in. Book a call for a portfolio conversation.
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