Justin Mares

Icon (icon.me) is the AI Admaker. Backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Eric Nam (K-Pop), Alex Botez (Chess), Reilly Opelka (Tennis), Max Altman (Saga) & execs of OpenAI, Ramp, Flexport, Cognition, & Pika.

Upside Financing enables Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) businesses to take advantage of extended payment terms for their Inventory and PO purchases. In turn, this allows Brands and Manufacturers to grow at the speed of their business instead of traditional banking relationships or by resorting to dilutive equity raises. Upside was created to address major pain points our founding team of CPG executives have lived, breathed, and experienced in previous companies. And as we’re seeing through rapid traction with customers and capital partners, we weren’t the only ones searching for this solution. Prior to our formal launch (coming soon!), we’ve received $190mm in total debt offers and closed a $10.6mm seed round from carefully vetted VCs in Silicon Valley with consistent and successful track records. Within 16 weeks, we lined up the $10.6mm in equity, closed a $30mm debt facility, executed partnerships opening up a pipeline of over 10,000 customers, and perhaps most importantly - hired a knowledgeable team (19 and counting!) made up of different talents, backgrounds, and experiences. Were hiring! https://upsidefinancing.bamboohr.com/jobs/

Icon (icon.me) is the AI Admaker. Backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Eric Nam (K-Pop), Alex Botez (Chess), Reilly Opelka (Tennis), Max Altman (Saga) & execs of OpenAI, Ramp, Flexport, Cognition, & Pika.

TrueMed is a payments tool (think PayPal for HSA/FSA) that allows health + wellness brands to accept HSA/FSA funds. We are partnering with leading health and wellness brands such as CrossFit, Magic Mind, and DB Method to drive increased AOV (30%+ for many leading merchants), retention (40% increase in month 2 retention) and LTV.  Our implementations are simple (official Shopify payments app/code snippets) and take less than 30 minutes to install with no engineering on the merchants side.  Our goal is to unlock the $150B in HSA/FSA funds for wellness brands, and make it easy for customers to spend tax-free dollars on their health.  We developed this company in close connection with the White House point person on HSA/FSA policy, key members of Congress and metabolic health leaders such as Dr. Mark Hyman. 

We are an early stage venture fund based out of San Francisco.

Surely started as a project between friends to give people a sophisticated option when they were deciding not to drink alcohol - whatever the reason. Our mission is to create the best of both worlds - craft great tasting wines that don’t compromise your health. We work with a talented team of winemakers and source our grapes from premium California regions. Our winemaking process starts with alcoholic wine that we delicately remove the alcohol from. Once the wine is dealcoholized we blend in small amounts of juice to elevate the aromatics and round out the palette. The end result is a beautifully balanced wine that fits any lifestyle.

Upside Financing enables Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) businesses to take advantage of extended payment terms for their Inventory and PO purchases. In turn, this allows Brands and Manufacturers to grow at the speed of their business instead of traditional banking relationships or by resorting to dilutive equity raises. Upside was created to address major pain points our founding team of CPG executives have lived, breathed, and experienced in previous companies. And as we’re seeing through rapid traction with customers and capital partners, we weren’t the only ones searching for this solution. Prior to our formal launch (coming soon!), we’ve received $190mm in total debt offers and closed a $10.6mm seed round from carefully vetted VCs in Silicon Valley with consistent and successful track records. Within 16 weeks, we lined up the $10.6mm in equity, closed a $30mm debt facility, executed partnerships opening up a pipeline of over 10,000 customers, and perhaps most importantly - hired a knowledgeable team (19 and counting!) made up of different talents, backgrounds, and experiences. Were hiring! https://upsidefinancing.bamboohr.com/jobs/