Venture Capital Insights: AI, Financing, And Future Trends With Priscilla Guevara, Part 2

 

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

Welcome to another episode of The 7 in 7 Show with Zack Ellison, which features full length interviews with the world’s leading investors in innovation.

Episode #11B of Season 2 features Priscilla Guevara, General Partner at Science, where she has evolved the Los Angeles-based fund from a studio into a multi-asset investment firm. By leading partnerships and communications across the institutional investor network, corporate partners and portfolio, she has bridged the gap between investors and partners in innovation.

Science’s startup studio has built household names including Dollar Shave Club, MeUndies, and Liquid Death. With Science as the lead investor, Priscilla was instrumental in Liquid Death’s success in fundraising. The brand’s valuation as of March 2024 is $1.4 billion. Priscilla also leads structuring and capital formation efforts for new investment vehicles, while expanding Science’s investment platform that includes early-stage venture funds, rolling funds, co-invest follow-on as well as late-stage SPVs.

She is the Founder of SWIPE – Senior Women in Private Equity Group – with 3,000+ global members including institutional investors and operators from Blackstone, KKR, and Temasek, among others. SWIPE also has chapters in Asia-Pacific, South and Central America, EMEA, Canada, and the UK.

She’s also chair of the Development Committee of the James Beard Foundation and has served on the board of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (NYC Chapter). She has also been a speaker for conferences such as Visionary Voices by All Raise, which works to amplify female and non-binary voices at tech events and in the media, as well as SuperReturn International, Private Equity International, and LA Tech Week.

In this episode, Zack Ellison and Priscilla Guevara discuss:

1. Priscilla Guevara’s Journey: From Wall Street to a general partner at Science, showcasing the transition from finance to venture capital.
2. Science’s Role as a Venture Studio: How they help early-stage companies scale, build, and exit successfully.
3. Investment Highlights: Discussion on major investments like Liquid Death, highlighting Science’s knack for picking unique consumer brands.
4. Cultural Shifts in Consumer Behavior: How Science leverages cultural insights to make strategic investments.
5. The Significance of Referrals in Sourcing Deals: Importance of network and reputation in the venture capital industry.
6. The Strategic Use of Consumer Authenticity and Virality: How these elements are crucial in brand building and product success.
7. Educational Backgrounds of Founders: Discussing the influence of academic backgrounds on venture success and the networking benefits it brings.

Venture Capital Insights: AI, Financing, And Future Trends With Priscilla Guevara, Part 2

External Counsel

One thing I have been advising companies to do is hire external advisors when they are thinking about their capital raising and also their capital structure in general. Oftentimes, a startup will go to their equity VCs and let them dictate the fundraising and the capital structure. That doesn’t make any sense because there’s alignment, but it’s not as good as people think. As a founder, in my opinion, you should not be relying on your lead VCs to tell you what to do because they are not always going to do what’s best for you. They are going to do what’s best for them. Sometimes there’s alignment there, but oftentimes that alignment breaks down, and a lot of founders don’t realize that. VCs don’t like me to say because they want to be the only voice in the room but you are not making good decisions if you are a founder and you are not going to external counsel when you are making fundraising decisions.

We have guided similarly our founders to find external counsel. It’s also that they need to be empowered. At the end of the day, they are CEOs and should know the business in and out and all their different options. I agree that empowering them to be smart about their capital and investments is a hundred percent yes.

One of the things I have done over the last several years is teach people about venture debt. I’m not trying to sell them anything. A couple of years ago, we didn’t even have capital to deploy. I was there to teach and build credibility but even now, when we do have the capital to deploy, I still think that the right approach for us, at least, is to start by being a trusted source of information that’s not making an ask.

I don’t care if any company wants to borrow money from ARI. I don’t care because there are 1,000 companies out there that we could lend to that are high quality. I’m not interested in lending to just one that I love. I want to lend to a diverse spectrum of companies that meet our investment criteria. It’s very different as a lender than it is as an equity investor in the sense that if you are an equity investor and you missed out on Liquid Death, you missed out on one of the $3 billion exits that LA had ever.

Meanwhile, as a lender, I wouldn’t care if I missed out on Liquid Death because I’m playing mainly for the interest. All I want is companies that are not going to default, that are going to be good solid companies, pay me back, pay the loan down, and hopefully do well because we do have some equity upside through equity warrants, but that’s not the main driver of our returns. I try to explain this to folks, especially LPs who don’t understand how this works, and they conflate venture debt risk with venture equity risk, and they are completely uncorrelated. They will say, “How do you source that one hot deal?” I would never want to do the hot deal as a lender because that means you are going to get the worst terms as a lender.

 

 

If you’ve got a bunch of term sheets you’re competing with, it means you are going to charge a lower interest rate. The structure is going to be looser and more in favor of the borrower, putting you as the lender at more risk. A lot of folks don’t get that, and so I try to explain to them that what we want to do, not just ARI, but any good lender is to hit a lot of singles and doubles. We don’t want to strike out, and when we do strike out occasionally, which will happen, there are still some winners in there where we have got the equity upside that more than counterbalances any losses.

Red Flags When Evaluating Founders

Going back to trends in the market and talking about founders and what they need to do. You talked about some of the things you look for in good founders. What are some red flags where you want to run for the hills when you see them?

I don’t know if it’s red flags or running for the hills. There are certain businesses that we just don’t know. We are not deep tech investors, and so we get a lot of inbounds. Oftentimes, when we see these deals, we are also named Science. Oftentimes, we’ll get some life sciences and healthcare deals. That’s not us. We are not a biotech firm.

Also, personalities. Going back to what we look for, people being open. There’s a psychological connection between us and our founders of, “We’re doing this and we’re doing this together.” If there’s a break there that could be with anything that’s not necessarily unique to us, but in any business. You want to make sure that we are all fully aligned and moving forward.

Some of the others, when we look at businesses, going back to your point of looking at the cap table, is there anything that stands out? Maybe it’s a recap, and maybe those are things that as we are launching a business, want to move forward on. Are there any legal ramifications for us that we need to be aware of? There’s a handful of legal, regulatory, and financial issues. We are working with these businesses super early, so oftentimes there are little to no names on the cap table but generally, at the very earliest, it’s a cultural fit for us.

Sourcing Investments

A question I often get is, “How do you source investments?” That’s especially important for earlier-stage equity investors. It’s not that relevant a question for a venture lender because the universe is predefined. If we are lending to Series A, B, and C companies, they are already out there. It’s pretty obvious. You log into PitchBook or Crunchbase or the equivalent, and they are all there, then you decide, “Of those 5,000 deals, which are the ten that you want to invest in this year?”

For a lender, it’s easy in my view. That question about sourcing comes from a place of misunderstanding when they ask me that. When they ask you that, it’s a relevant question because when you’re that early, how do you find Liquid Death? How do you find Dollar Shave Club? When you do find it, are there other people trying to get in and box you out, and how do you deal with that?

When we think about sourcing, a big portion of our deals come through referrals, and that’s because they know us. They know what we are known for. We’ve been around since 2011. We are looking for CPG companies. Are we looking at a mobile company? Are we looking for a marketplace? Is there a D2C component or a B2C component to it? A third of them do come through these referrals. A third of them come through universities. We’re in LA, and so we have close connections with USC, UCLA, Caltech, and a lot of the engineering hubs. We have Pepperdine as well which isn’t based in LA. Oftentimes, we’re seeing a lot of talent coming through those schools.

The third is we do have a lot of inbounds. Oftentimes, these inbounds from founders may have known some of the founders we’ve worked with previously. Oftentimes, we’ll get pitched. For example, Darren from Mindset Care, which is our Fund 3 portfolio company, pitched Peter while he was waiting for his Uber. Peter said, “I have X amount of time until my Uber arrives.” From that perspective, the sourcing, back to what we were talking about with brand awareness, people are starting to know who Science is, some of our connected portfolio companies, and some of our connected founders. We’re so excited that the community is growing, and more and more, we are finding partnership alignment. That’s been great.

That goes back to our points about having a strong platform. Part of the reason that ARI has taken a long time, in my view, to deploy capital is because we’ve been building the platform. People have asked, “Why don’t you go do deals?” My response has always been, “I don’t care about doing deals. I’ve done deals my whole life. That’s easy. What’s hard to do and what creates long-term sustainable value is building a world-class platform because then it’s working for you 24/7. When you’ve got brand, connectivity, visibility, and credibility. Now it’s a money machine. You put money in one end, and it comes out the other, 2X to 3X bigger.”

I don’t know if we have discussed this before, but I run this group called Senior Women in Private Equity, and it was founded with two of my co-founders in New York. It was out of realization, “We are not finding deals outside of anything in our workplace.” The three of us started to get together, and it’s grown. When I moved out to the West Coast and realized I wanted to build out my investment network there, we built out a West Coast chapter. Now, we are sitting at almost 4,000 women globally, and the idea is, how can we share deal flow on an informal basis? That’s exactly it. You are your network, and it’s beautiful to see it grow. It also brings in another diverse aspect of what our deal flow looks like.

We want to be able to relate and connect. That's how you drive meaningful businesses and relationships. Share on X

I was reading up on SWIPE, which is the acronym. Very smart acronym. I like that. Very memorable. Having that network is what creates value. It’s funny because people have often asked me, “Why do you have so many degrees? Why do you have the CFA? Why do you have the CAIA, Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst?” My response has always been, “I started with no money. I grew up with no money,” and part of it is, “I never want to be poor again.”

You see that a lot of athletes and successful businesspeople who grew up with limited means are relentless about getting better every day because they never want to go back. It’s scarring. Growing up in poverty is very scary, and I don’t think there’s any other way to put it. Almost everybody would agree. That’s part of it, but now, I don’t need any more credentials. Still, I’m finishing up a doctorate at the University of Florida. I don’t know if I told you this.

People have asked me, “Why are you getting a doctorate? That seems like a waste of your time.” My response has been, “It’s fun to learn and I love being around smart professors and great classmates.” Part of it’s just, that I enjoy that environment. I like being around smart people who are interested in business like I am, but a big part of it too is the network because the University of Florida has 500,000 plus alums, and they are super loyal.

When I go to the gym at Gold’s Gym in Venice and wear a University of Florida hat, I get stopped by half a dozen people every single time. They say, “Go Gators” and strike up a conversation. That gives you the entry point to have a conversation, which is all I need. You give me 1 inch, I’ll take 3 yards. My thinking is that not only can I become Dr. Ellison, but I can have a lot of fun doing it. I can also now have access to a huge part of the market that’s completely underserved, which is the Southeast United States.

You’ve opened the dialogue. You are relatable. That’s super key and important. Again, relationship building is key. We want to be able to relate and connect, and that’s how you drive meaningful businesses and relationships. That’s great. Congrats. I did not realize that.

Mistakes VCs Make

Thanks. I’m about done with all the classes, and I’m doing my dissertation on venture debt. Surprise. It’s pretty cool because my advisor is the head of the finance faculty at the business school there at Wharton College of Business. He did his PhD at the University of Chicago, where I did my MBA. He did his PhD there in the ‘80s, and his advisor was Eugene Fama. If you think about modern portfolio theory and efficient markets, that was all born at the University of Chicago, and Eugene Fama is one of the most legendary investors out there, or certainly a theorist around investing. It’s pretty cool to have that Chicago and Florida lineage coming together. Shifting gears a little bit, what are some of the mistakes that you see VCs make, and where are some investments that maybe Science got wrong, and what did you learn from them?

Oftentimes, when we are working with these businesses, they are very early. For us, if I had to think broadly about VC and where things go wrong, what we saw with the FOMO deals a few years ago, with us, we are very diligent on entry points. We are generally $3.5 million to $5 million pre-money. Some of these FOMO deals we couldn’t get into, but in the end, some of the VCs did get burned, and that caused a shakeup in the market. A lot of institutional capital went into that. The positive side of that is that it improves underwriting processes now going forward, across the board.

For us at Science, oftentimes when we are looking at a business, maybe these businesses will seem like a venture-backed business as we are moving forward and working with them. Maybe in that studio time with the founder, we realize there’s not a product-market fit. Maybe we are not getting enough customers. That does happen when we have launched a business, are working, and iterating but at that point, we want to make sure that we are not continuing to invest.

At the end of the day, that’s what we are thinking about if something doesn’t work. We are very open, honest, and transparent about that, and it goes back to values. Do you have integrity in these businesses? We know what we know and know what we don’t want. When the founders have that integrity, we will move forward, but when they don’t, things if anyone wants to hide information or if any of those types of things get uncovered in some way or another. For us, those would be not only red flags but also reasons why a company would not continue to stay on.

As I have met with more founders over the years, it’s made me better at raising capital for ARI as well because it’s like sitting on the other side of the table. If you think back to when you were younger and you were the interviewee, and you’d go into some interviews, it always seemed very harrowing. In hindsight, once you are on the other side of the table and doing the interviewing, you realize, “This is pretty easy. All I want to hear are some pretty simple answers and for them to stop talking.” I’ve learned that too because, when I was dealing with prospective portfolio companies, or even a couple of years ago before I was even close to deploying capital, I still learned a lot by evaluating others’ pitches.

I thought, “This pitch,” for instance, a pitch that’s very aggressive and exuberant, sometimes scares me off because they are not in touch with reality. They are like, “The TAM is $2 trillion, and we are going to revolutionize this world and be a $50 billion company.” It’s like, “No, you are not with 99.99% probability.” If you came to me with something more realistic, that’s more compelling. A lot of the things I’ve learned have come from seeing what founders do wrong in their pitches. A couple of things I’ve learned are being authentic. That helps quite a bit to be yourself, and I always have been. That’s easy.

Have high integrity. Don’t hide things. Tell people, “This is where we are struggling. This is going well, this is what’s not going well, and this is where we need your help.” You put a positive spin on it. It’s like dating. You want to be honest with your potential partners, but you also don’t want to tell them all your negative aspects on day one. Dating is a great analogy for raising capital. It is like that.

Founders who are authentic and have high integrity are very transparent. That goes a long way. It especially goes a long way in this market because a lot of founders are feeling pressured to say things are better than they are. They know things are not going well, their valuations have cratered, their growth is slowing, their employees are leaving, and they are worried. They try to put on this facade, and any good VC can see through that in about two minutes. What would be more compelling is if they were honest and said, “Here’s where we think we can still make a big impact, but we’ve got these problems. One of them might be liquidity or valuation, and we need to fix those. We would love your help because if you help us, here’s how we think we can add value for you and deliver performance.”

 

That is so key. That is resonating and something we have seen.

Have you seen any companies that you feel like there is a trend towards hiding the ball?

I have seen a couple. It goes back to that psychological shift, especially at the earliest stages, wanting to make it work. We have worked with so many founders now that we know. At the end of the day, we are looking for the support behind it. That’s one. The second is when we start to see companies that may want to start fundraising earlier than we think they should.

For us, it’s, “Do they need to fundraise now? Are there other ways that won’t dilute the cap table for all of us, for many reasons?” We always suggest, “Don’t raise just to raise. Don’t try to make a business work if it’s not working.” It goes back to what we said. How do we have an open dialogue on things that are happening in the business? That ultimately goes back to what our platform is. Can we have visibility into the data that we are used to seeing? We have high-fidelity data and access from the very beginning. If you don’t have that, it breaks the trust. Once the trust is broken, it’s difficult to get back.

Venture Debt

You mentioned not diluting the cap table as being important, and that leads us back to venture debt in the sense that debt is not diluted at all. The equity warrants that come with venture debt are somewhat dilutive, but a lot less so than straight equity. What do you think about debt as a solution for founders and also, how do venture lenders work best with venture equity investors?

It’s a supportive financing tool, and everybody should look at it as an option. At the end of the day, there are so many different types of businesses, and each business has its own different capital needs and structures. We have thought about even some of our companies, and if we are thinking about consumer inventory.

Consumer inventory is a big one. It’s expensive and hefty. We have also thought about others who are working on ad spend. Maybe that ad spend is not necessarily well-spent through equity dollars. If you think about how we maximize the value on our cap table, how do we maximize the business? At the end of the day, yes, there are options.

You had mentioned equity warrants as well. That’s an attractive one that I don’t think many people know about, so that would be a dialogue that should be talked about a lot more. Venture debt is an option, especially again, going back to before they start raising, we don’t know what we don’t know, and so it comes back to educational awareness. That’s something that, at our studio level, we are starting to come up with a number of different resources. We have landing pages that founders can now access and get educated. We start to have community engagement events where we bring in groups like yourself.

Can you talk one-on-one with our companies and be in the same room? At the end of the day, it’s to your point that maybe you are not pushing the product now, maybe it’s not needed right now, but at least you are remaining top of mind. Oftentimes, it’s like, “Maybe we don’t need it now,” but at some point, if they come across a position where they require it. Maybe then they are thinking, “Who do I now know? Who can I go back to?” It goes back to having access to resources and knowledge.

I agree that the sales cycle is long, or it should be. It’s not always long. Sometimes it can be you meet somebody and you are funding them four weeks later. The reality is if you want to form that relationship and build that relationship on education, and eventually trust and credibility, that takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. A lot of the best deals were sewn 3 to 5 years beforehand.

If we go back to the warrants aspect, it’s about thinking long-term in your relationship with the groups. If you are in venture debt and it converts at some point into equity, it’s like, “We’ve been a partner and supportive along the way, and so you’ve known the business, maybe at an earlier stage.” That’s great. I agree.

I want to dive into that a little bit in terms of the warrants, because what warrants do, and I’m going to take a half step back for folks that don’t know, a warrant is a call option, which is the right to buy shares in the company that you’ve lent to. Most venture debt deals will consist of a loan, typically a 3 to 4-year loan, and it’ll have a mid-teens type interest rate. In addition to that, the lender also has the option to buy shares in the company. Usually, the warrants have a ten-year expiry. The lender can buy shares in that company at any point over the next ten years. Ostensibly, they are going to exercise those options if the company exits and they are either acquired or goes public.

What’s nice about this that people don’t often realize is that it’s super elegant in its structure because it’s not just about the lender potentially having more upside, it’s about long-term alignment. This is what people miss. If I’m a lender and I’ve got a ten-year option to buy stock in your company, I’m going to be rooting for you and supporting you even after the loan has matured. The loan can mature in 3 years, but I’ve got 7 more years after that where I’m still aligned with you because I’ve got this ability to generate a lot of upside if you do well.

AI is going to be here for a long time, and it's only getting smarter and faster. Share on X

If we didn’t have those warrants, then the incentives wouldn’t be aligned because the lender would be thinking, “I want to get all my money back within 3 years, and I don’t care what happens to that company after 3 years.” They could fail 3 years and 1 day from now, and I wouldn’t care if I didn’t have equity warrants. That’s what the lenders are thinking.

That’s why venture debt, to me, is such an interesting product from an academic perspective as well, which is why academics call me all the time to want to partner on research. It’s got this incentive structure that’s completely different from a straight-term loan, and it’s also got components that are completely different from straight equity. It’s this hybrid product, and there are so many different things that go into it that make it interesting from a research perspective. Not to mention that there hasn’t been that much work done on it previously because it hasn’t been that big a part of the market.

It’s still emerging. It’s growing fast, but it’s still a relatively small segment of the market. There’s so much opportunity there on the research side, which is when I put on my academic hat, I get excited about it because there are some interesting theoretical implications. One of them, probably the most important in my view, is this idea of alignment. Switching gears again, we don’t have much time left. I wanted to talk a little bit about AI because everybody’s talking about it, and I would love to know how you are thinking about it, how Science is thinking about it, and generally how you think it’s going to impact the world and the VC ecosystem.

AI

All of our companies and our entire team, including myself, are playing around with AI every day. That could be, at the most limited capacity, setting up an itinerary for a trip. How simple is that? On a larger scale and more impactfully, I would start with sure, that there’s generative AI, and there are also many tools. How can we find ways to make things more efficient? When I was speaking a little bit about our Fund 3 company, Mindset Care, it does utilize AI, and what it’s doing is turbocharging that process to apply for social security and disability benefits. What that means is how can we quickly upload information and have it spit out smart data for us, and understand and fill out certain assessments, making sure that we are filling things out appropriately to meet regulatory guidelines. That’s going to make a massive difference across government tech, which is a very archaic system at the moment.

When we think about our businesses, what are some of these legacy businesses, large conglomerates, maybe legacy processes? How can we make those more efficient by utilizing AI? I’d say Mindset Care is probably at the forefront of that. We do have another company called FIY.ai, which stands for Fix It Yourself. They are working on something interesting where they work with a handful of OEMs and manufacturing companies, ingesting those manuals and making it quite smart to essentially be that customer service troubleshoots on behalf of the corporates.

That’s meaningful because how often, if you have a vintage car, do you wonder, “Where are those manuals? How do I find the part I need to fix?” Maybe you have to find a foreign auto center to find a piece. Oftentimes, it’s difficult. It’s making our life easier, which is at the core of everything we’ve always wanted to do, in a very short amount of time.

For us, AI is going to be something that we use across all of our businesses. Another company that’s more in the media space is called TYPPO, and it’s utilizing AI by voice diction to create presentations. That is super cool because we are now seeing a lot of conglomerates like P&G for example, thinking about innovation in new ways. They have a handful of different brands and products, and how are they able to innovate quickly? How can they utilize some of these programs like TYPPO to spin up a presentation, graphics, and things much more quickly than we ever have before? That is more related to our portfolio and our company, but broadly, what we are seeing across the board is that AI is going to be here for the long run, and it’s only getting smarter and faster.

One of the things I worry about with AI is that, in the short run, it’ll make us a lot more productive. Everybody using it will essentially be more efficient with their time and energy but over time, that could mean that some jobs are not necessary anymore, and people lose their jobs. That’s one thing I’ve been thinking about. That’s fairly obvious.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is how AI will make us more efficient in the near term, but inherently it will make us lazier because we’ll be using it for things that we used to have to use our brain or our body to do. We’ll essentially become detrained. We will atrophy, essentially. Like our brains and our bodies, when AI continues to advance, it will have an inverse correlation with that. Our advancement as humans, our ability to apply real intelligence, ARI which is why I named it is going to decrease. We could become lazy slobs that sit around and think that AI is going to solve everything for us, and robots and technology are going to do the rest. What’s your view on that? Do you think we are at risk of becoming obsolete and lazy slobs?

No, if anything, it’s quite a bit of work. If you are on ChatGPT, Bard, or any of these platforms, you have to think about how to be smart and how to prompt it. It’s how do we ask better questions? At the end of the day, that’s true. How do we make sure that we are producing the right discovery options and paths forward? For us or at least for me, how I think about it, it’s understanding what my end goal is, but how can I use ChatGPT to make the process better? There are going to be certain elements where maybe we can utilize it. It’ll decrease maybe the work productivity from a human capital perspective but it’s also going to open up other opportunities for us.

There are going to be many more people who are going to think about other advancements in technology. There’s going to be a lot of personalization around utilizing AI. There’s going to be adaptations. I will talk about discovery. It’s like, “How can you enhance what that journey looks like?” That only makes you smarter by being involved in AI. That’s how I’m thinking about it.

 

It’s funny because AI prompting is becoming an art form, in a sense. You are still using your brain because now you are thinking, “How do I prompt ChatGPT to give me the results that I want?” There was an article out about with the right prompting, you can get ChatGPT to give you answers to things that should be banned like how to make a bomb or how to do something illegal because if you prompt it’ll eventually break. There’s a back doorway into getting the information that you want, even if you are not allowed to get that information on the surface. You can dig in and trick the machine. I thought that was very interesting. It goes to show that there’s still a lot more that needs to be done, and there’s a lot of risk there.

At a high level, yes, there are still risks. It’s having the oversight around making sure that we have restrictions in place. That’s a scary dark place for AI.

Key Themes In The Future

Most people are thinking about the positive aspects, but we do need to keep in mind all the negative potential aspects as well. That’s the last question of the day to leave everybody with. What are the key themes that you are thinking about over the next couple of years, outside of AI? Anything that you think is relevant that folks should be thinking about?

Through the lens of the consumer and these cultural shifts. We talked about how the current generation is spending their time, their money, and their energy. For us, a different angle that I have seen is through a lot of the federal budgets. If you think through what the government is spending on, and what’s driving them, it has also been an interesting angle, at least for me and my team, in thinking through how federal budgets are being spent in many states on mental health. What does that mean? When they say mental health, when you start to dig in, going into the states and the municipalities, that’s driven us to go deeper into mindset care.

Mental health is a big area for us. Better for your health. Certain states are trying to fight obesity. We saw the Ozempic, this pendulum shift. There’s continuing to find alternative medicines outside of our general healthcare PCPs. How do we find those that tackle certain chronic issues that, on the face of it, we can’t see? The third is these wellness experiences and how we think about our bodies. There’s a lot of talk about biohacking and climate. All of those, in a sense, are bucketed under what are our values. The second pillar is where those federal budgets are being spent from a more macroeconomic view but that’s how we are generally thinking. We are trying to see around the corner and what’s next. I’m excited to see what we are going to build in the next couple of years.

I’m excited to see what you guys are going to invest in because you are investing earlier than I am, and so I get to see what you guys are doing, and then ride off the success of your investments.

We are going to partner on those, so I can’t wait.

I’m excited, and it’s been nice having you on, Priscilla. Thanks for joining.

Thanks for having me. It’s good to see you.

Likewise, thanks to everybody for tuning in. See you next time.

 

Important Links

• Zack Ellison on LinkedIn
• Applied Real Intelligence (A.R.I.)
• 7 in 7 Show with Zack Ellison on Apple
• 7 in 7 Show with Zack Ellison on Spotify
• 7 in 7 Show with Zack Ellison on YouTube
• 7 in 7 Show with Zack Ellison on Amazon Music
• Priscilla J. Guevara on LinkedIn
• Science
• Mindset Care
• Senior Women in Private Equity
• FIY.ai
• TYPPO
• 7 in 7 Show Disclaimer

 

About Priscilla Guevara

Over 20 years of domestic and international financial experience, complemented by a deep operational and regulatory foundation. Served in highly visible, integral capacities with a focus on business strategy, development and investments. Columbia MBA grad with a keen ability to drive recommendations and create value through a data-driven, strategic and charismatic approach. Proven and successful entrepreneur with a strong, valued network.

Priscilla Guevara is a Partner at Science, a Los Angeles-based multi-asset investment firm partnering with and investing in disruptive consumer companies. She leads the structuring and capital formation efforts for investment vehicles and co-invest follow-on, manages partnerships & communications, and is an investor on behalf of Science Ventures.

Prior to Science, Priscilla served as an investor at ZX Ventures (Anheuser-Busch’s CVC arm) and an investor in sustainable assets on behalf of family offices. Further, her early international experience and expertise across Wall Street, from Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation to Neuberger Berman and JCAM (Moore Capital), resulted in growth of $10B+ AUM.

She is the Founder of Senior Women in Private Equity (SWIPE), on the Development Committee of the James Beard Foundation, and a Member of Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), All Raise, BeyondBoard, 100 Women in Finance, Women in Institutional Investing Network (WIIIN), and PR Net. She previously served on the board of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (NYC Chapter). In her formative years, Priscilla held the title of Miss Junior Teen San Diego.

Personal Interests …
Transcendental Meditation, Hot Athletic Yoga, Tennis USTA Ranking 3.0, Pianist, Abstract Acrylic Artist, Level I Certified Master Sommelier, Travel, Reading, Intellectual Curiosity

SKILLS
*Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)
*Investment Diligence
*Valuation Modeling
*Capital Formation
*Investor Relations
*Marketing
*Partnerships
*Communications
*Brand Building
*Event Planning
*Risk Management
*Strategy
*Advisory

Financial:
Alternative Assets, Private Equity, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds, Credit

Sustainability:
Health & Wellness, Renewable Energy, Women’s Empowerment, Financial Inclusion, Plastic-free Packaging, Plant-based

Blockchain/Crypto:
Blockchain for Social Impact, Liquid Structured Vehicles, Quant Algorithms, DeFi, Web3

Consumer/CPG (Disruptive Innovation):
Supply Chain/Logistics, Marketing/AdTech, Food & Beverage, Fem Health

Hospitality:
Global Luxury Hotels, Restaurants & Bars, Franchises, Michelin-star, James Beard Foundation