BevNET Live Summer 2023: The State of Growth Capital
Growth capital is the fuel for beverage companies seeking to accelerate and transform – but how are growth equity investors evaluating the brands and founders who are pitching them? Our panel discusses deal flow, valuations, boards and their expectations for future funding trends.
About the panel:
Alex is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Semillero Partners, a minority-led venture capital firm investing in early to growth-stage, purpose-driven, sustainable food, beverage, and food tech companies. Across two investment funds, Semillero Partners invested in 24 unique companies based in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Israel. Alex is also an active angel investor in various industries, including being an early investor in Imperfect Foods, Spyce, Jane Technologies, Jiant, and Recess. He is also an active board member of several private companies, including Seal the Seasons, Clover Food Lab, and Splendid Spoon. Alex currently resides in the greater New York metro area. Prior to Semillero Partners, he was the first Director of Finance for Eataly USA. Early in his career, Alex proved his financial leadership on the equity derivatives institutional sales team at BNP Paribas.
Carolyn joined Melitas Ventures as a Partner in 2022. She was previously an investor at Alliance Consumer Growth and CircleUp, and has dedicated her career to investing in high growth consumer businesses across a variety of verticals and stages. Before that, Carolyn was an Associate in Private Equity at Sycamore Partners, where she worked on acquisitions of large, iconic consumer and retail companies and helped manage a portfolio of apparel brands. She began her career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs in the consumer and retail group. Carolyn received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Stanford University.
Jose is a member of the investment team at VMG Partners. Previously, Jose was the CFO at Common House, a social club concept that cultivates community through inspirational design, dynamic programming, and food and beverage. Previous to that, Jose ran corporate development and strategy for Make It Nice, a NYC-based hospitality company that owned and operated several high end restaurant properties, including Eleven Madison Park, the Nomad (NY, LA, Vegas, London), and Davies and Brook (at the Claridge’s hotel in London). Jose started his career in investment banking at Credit Suisse. He received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School and currently lives in San Francisco, CA with his wife.
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