Mike Gelb

Follow for insights on venture capital, consumer startups and tips on how to build your network // Looking To Learn? Head to 👉 theconsumervc.com

I didn’t grow up in venture.

My background was in the music industry - producing, promoting, and trying to make sense of creativity and business.

But something kept pulling me toward the world of startups. I was fascinated by how brands get built, funded, and scaled.

I didn’t know anyone in VC.

I just started asking questions.

The first few podcast episodes? Awkward.

I overdubbed my voice. 

I stuttered. 

But I kept showing up.

300+ episodes later, Consumer VC has become one of the most trusted platforms in the space - a home for real conversations between founders, investors, and operators who are shaping what we buy and why we buy it.

- 7.5K+ newsletter subscribers
- Listeners in 100+ countries
- Events in LA, NYC & Austin

I focus on what actually drives scale - from pre-seed to $500M+ in revenue and how people navigate the messy middle of brand-building.

If you’re building or backing something in CPG, wellness, retail, marketplaces, social or consumer tech - I’d love for you to be part of it.

Subscribe to the newsletter in the Featured section below. 👇

Venture Scout

A podcast serving founders and investors that want to learn how some of the top venture capitalists that invest in B2C businesses make investing decisions.

Past guests include:
Mark Gainey, Founder of Strava
Andy Dunn, Founder of Bonobos
Ariel Kaye, Founder of Parachute
Denise Woodard, Founder of Partake Foods
Nagraj Kashyap, Managing Partner at Softbank Investment Advisors' Vision Fund
Wayne Wu, General Partner at VMG
Mike Duda, Managing Partner at Bullish
Brendan Rogers, Co-founder of Wag! and 2am
Madeline Haydon, Founder of nut pods
Matteo Franceschetti, Founder of Eight Sleep
Bret Thomas, Founder of CAVU Venture Partners
Carter Reum, Founder of M13
Soraya Darabi, Founder of TMV
Elizabeth Yin, Founder of Hustle Fund
Ariana Thacker, Founding Partner of Conscience VC
Henri Pierre-Jacques, Founder of Harlem Capital
Greg Bettinelli, Partner at Upfront Ventures
Daniel Gluck, General Partner at Powerplant Ventures
Kiva Dickinson, Founder of Selva Ventures
Adelle Archer, Founder of Eterneva
Kanyi Maqubela, Founder of Kindred Ventures
Steve Hughes, Founder of Sunrise Strategic Partners
Seth Goldman, Founder of Honest Tea, Eat the Change and PLNT Burger
Spike Mendelsohn, Celebrity Chef & Founder of Eat the Change, PLNT Burger
Jesse Draper, Founder of Halogen Ventures
Nick Saltarelli, Founder of Mid-Day Squares
Charles Hudson, Founder of Precursor Ventures
Rick Desai, General Partner at Listen Ventures
Michele Romanow, Founder of Clearco
Mac the VC, Founder of Rarebreed
Michael Ronen, Founder of Branded
Jason Karp, Founder of Humanco, Hu Kitchen and Hu Chocolate
Jackie Fast, Founder of Sandbox Studios
Joe Kudla, Founder of Vouri
John Foraker, Founder of Once Upon a Farm
Kate Beardsley, Founder of Hannah Grey
Mike Ghaffary, General Partner at Canvas
Nisha Dua, Founder of BBG Ventures
Ben Sun, Founder of Primary Ventures
+ more

Ranked by Listen Notes as one of the top 1% most popular shows globally.

To learn more, head over to www.theconsumervc.com

Heading to Winter FancyFaire next week?

You'll spend 3 days walking the show floor.

But some of the best conversations happen before the badge scanning even starts.

That's why we're hosting "Rise, Roast, & Meet CPG" on Monday morning, January 12th.

Before the show floor opens.

A coffee meetup for brand founders, operators, investors, and industry experts.
It's a chance to connect with the CPG community before the chaos of the convention center begins.

Just a short walk from the venue.

Grab a coffee. Meet some great people. Then head to the show together.

Bridge is delighted to be partnering with Glimpse, ForceBrands, and Highline Brands to bring the ecosystem together.

If you're going to be there, come say hi.

RSVP Here – https://luma.com/ta52nqln

Dustin Cherry, Martin Forde, Merry Nebiyu, Matt Holden – I appreciate the partnership.

Stay classy San Diego.

Founder and Host of Consumer VC | 300+ Unfiltered Conversations with Top VCs & Founders | Building the #1 Community for Consumer Investors and Founders

Beyond Meat is now just "Beyond."

And they're launching a beverage.

Beyond Immerse drops January 2026.

Sparkling plant-based protein drinks. 20g pea protein. 7g fiber. 60-100 calories.

Three flavors: Peach Mango, Lemon Lime, Orange Tangerine.

Available DTC through their Beyond Test Kitchen platform.

This isn't random innovation.

The category that built Beyond is contracting.

So they rebranded mid-2025. Dropped "Meat" from the name.

The signal? We're not a meat alternative company anymore.

We're a plant-based protein company.

And the global functional beverage market is projected to hit $339.6 billion by 2030.

That's where the growth is.

Here's what I find interesting:

They're not abandoning their core. They're expanding the definition.

The rebrand came first. The product followed.

It gives them permission to play in new categories without confusing their 
identity.

The DTC launch through Test Kitchen is smart too.

Lower risk. Direct feedback. Build demand before retail.

Will it work?

That depends whether consumers see Beyond as credible outside meat 
alternatives.

And if the product is delicious.

It's hard because I still think of Beyond as Beyond Meat.

But I wanna try it.

The move is a big swing.

When your category shrinks, you either own a smaller pie or find a bigger table.

Beyond chose the bigger table.

But will it work?

Tyler Mayoras has been investing in food and beverage since the Boca Burger days.

And he's seen the category go through multiple cycles.

From early plant-based pioneers to today's better-for-you brands.

On last week's episode of Consumer VC, I chatted with Tyler, Managing Partner at Manna Tree, to talk about what's actually working in food and wellness investing right now.

Not the hype. The reality.

Manna Tree is a private equity investing in consumer health and wellness brands and was started in 2018. Some of their investments include Health-Ade, good culture, New Primal, Plant People, Vital Farms

Fund I (2020)
Size: $141.5 million

Fund II (2023)
Size: $390 million (including co-investment capital)


We covered:
• Which plant-based food brands lost consumer trust
• What "better-for-you" means to serious investors
• How ingredient labels matter more than marketing claims
• Why frozen is one of the hardest categories in grocery
• When brands should (and shouldn't) scale into mass retail
• Why profitability now trumps growth at all costs
• How strategic buyers think about M&A today
• Why they didn't invest in Olipop & their investment strategy

Tyler's been through enough boom-and-bust cycles to know what separates durable brands from flash-in-the-pan trends.

Tyler – Thank you again for your time & for coming to Austin to our summit last November. I appreciate all your support of Consumer VC

Link to the full episode in the comments 👇

#consumervc #consumer #CPG #wellness #venturecapital #privateequity #investing

Head of Partnerships @ Glimpse (AI Deductions for CPG)

I'm looking for some top weirdos to join the partnerships team at Glimpse this year. (5 days a week in-office in NYC) (no recruiters please)

In the short term I'm primarily looking for someone to cover the outsourced finance and accounting firms who are powering their trade/deductions services with Glimpse or otherwise reselling our services. This person needs to be a bit of a blend of sales, marketing, and account management. Revenue and license activation are the KPIs, not just relationship management. 

At some point in the next couple months I will also need someone to manage the more traditional ecosystem referral partnership stuff... connecting our clients and prospects with relevant partners as well as making sure our sales team have a steady flow of consumer brands to speak with. 

Glimpse is automating finance back office and recovering lost revenue for hundreds of cool (and even uncool) consumer brands you've seen on-shelf at the likes of Whole Foods, Target, or Walmart. 

Partnerships and ecosystem alliances have been major sources of growth for us over the past 1.5 years and I'm excited to add some folks to the squad. 

Please DM me if you know someone or are someone who would be a good fit. 

Pictured below: the aftermath of a killer partner kickoff event that Merry Nebiyu threw with The Accountrepreneur, LLC and Mimi Cheng's Dumplings a few months back.

Flybits

Chief Growth Officer

Flybits is an award-winning customer experience platform for the financial service sector, delivering personalization at scale. With the most advanced capabilities in the market, our enterprise-level solution brings relevant content, products, offers, and information to a bank’s digital channels based on what each individual customer needs in the moments that matter. With Flybits, banks are able to design, launch, and measure data-driven consumer experiences that deliver the right information to the right customer at the right time, while preserving their privacy.

In 2022, Flybits introduced OpenDome for banks to enter the Metaverse - rendering data driven experiences in a Metaverse environment.

Backed by top investors including Citi Ventures, TD Bank, Mastercard, Point72 Ventures and Portage.

Vice President, Product Strategy & GTM

Accelerate Okanagan

Chair of the Board of Directors

Nishe

Advise and consult founding team on go-to-market, partnership development, product UX and capital fundraising.

Advisor @ Nishe Retail (Marketplace as a Service Platform)

RocketPlan Technologies Inc.

Advise and consult on go-to-market partnerships and capital.

Advisor @ RocketPlan (SaaS Platform)

Clearco

Clearco established itself as the world’s largest eCommerce investor (deploying $3.5B in 7000+ companies). Our mission is to remove the barriers between brilliant ideas, and brilliant businesses. Clearco has a suite of performance financing products & services tailor-made for founders in all stages of their journey. 

I'm proud to lead and support the Global Partnerships team building a network of Agency, Venture Capital, Accelerator & Platform partners - as we expand our suite of products and services to a global customer base of founders and entrepreneurs. 

- Drove 25-28% of company-wide revenue through partnerships
- Built playbooks which increased YoY revenue contribution by 220%
- Increased deal flow from our partner ecosystem to deploy over $50MM in Q1/Q2 of 2022.
- Stood up the first GTM execution for new invoice financing product

Global Director, Partnerships (Consumer Venture Capital, Agencies & Platforms)

GetintheLoop

Supported strategic and operational development of business model evolution and implemented new go-to-market model & API audience strategy.  Built structure to grow organization from 12 to 60 people, while expanding to over 100 markets.

GetintheLoop is Canada’s leading mobile offers platform, providing businesses with a simple-to-use SaaS platform to reach interested and active members on their smartphone.
 
GetintheLoop works with over 5000 Canadian businesses in 90+ markets from coast to coast. GetintheLoop is rapidly expanding into new markets with local owner/operators through our innovative approach to franchising.  Learn how we’ve become one of the fastest growing franchises in Canada at https://getinthelooplocal.com. 
 
Third party applications can apply to use GetintheLoop’s software development kit (SDK), to integrate local offers right into their app, providing their users with our network of relevant and local offers with one simple integration at https://loopmediagroup.com.

President & Chief Operating Officer

Mediative

We have a team of experienced marketing and technology professionals, across four Canadian offices, whom comprise the Mediative Consulting Group (MCG)

MCG has deep expertise in Marketing Analytics, Data Strategy & AI, Performance Media ( Social, Search, Display), SEO & Usability, and Research. 

We specialize in helping large brands navigate the art & science of modern marketing to better engage their mobile, local & social consumer of the future. Our team works with companies across North America & EMEA .

Our Research Division dives deep into understanding digital behavior. For the past decade we have helped global brands like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Coca Cola, Honda and others better understand their digital audience, measure key brand metrics, and provide insights to better engage their customers.

I'm also a member of the executive leadership team at Mediative, which leads a team of 140 across four business segments focused on digital media sales, retail monetization, creative development and consulting services.

Vice President & Head of Mediative Consulting Group

I am fortunate to lead a team of talented veteran digital marketers who do everything from crafting original research, to developing omni-channel strategies, to deploying data-fueled programmatic media. 

Our team builds solutions and deep consumer insight to help companies better engage the mobile, local & social consumer of the future. Understanding the evolution of consumers in the retail, financial services and travel sectors enables the Mediative team to provide strategies, solutions and services to drive performance and remarkable value.

With this team, we are responsible for growing and maintaining our Enterprise Media and Research business across North America.

VP, Enterprise Development, Media and Research

Our Client Development team helps businesses cut through the digital clutter so they can perform better in an otherwise complex digital landscape, and ultimately reach, engage, and convert more potential customers. Our team serves to educate marketers and media planners about the possibilities of performance based digital marketing. 

As a team we focus on developing strategic game plans that are designed to solve a business' key marketing challenges. Our team was able to build a consultative selling organization: a team that leads with thought leadership, building deep client relationships and executing with a remarkable service delivery team. The Client Development team focused its efforts on helping companies transform their marketing efforts, so they can better engage the modern consumer.

Vice President, Client Development (North America)

I collaborated with our Account Executive and National Sales Teams to build and grow our Media Sales and Digital Services business in the US and Western Canada. Focused on our key account relationships with our custom enterprise solutions and new middle market digital products.

- Mediative Performance Services (SEM, SEO, SMM, UX, Research)
- Mediative Places (Location Based Services & Optimization)
- Mediative Ad Network, Display Data Targeting & RTB

Director of Sales, US & Western Canada

Organizations who want to significantly enhance their online presence and influence buyers turn to us to help generate revenue by quickly moving their prospects from awareness to purchase.

Location and research-based data fuels our insight, which we leverage across consultative performance services, online properties, location-based marketing platforms for the dynamic digital world.

With precise and unmatched knowledge of how “shoppers and clients buy”, we take a consultative and holistic approach, based on our people’s passion for insight and results, to provide the outcomes you need now, and for the future.

Senior Account Director, Western & Central Region

Enquiro Research (Aquired by YPG)

Part of an original sales and account management team which built out a robust prospecting, lead nurturing and revenue growth practice - shifting from startup to scaled growth model as we engaged Fortune 1000 brands across NA. 

About Enquiro 

Enquiro is one of North America’s leading search marketing and usability agencies. We have worked with some best known brands including 3M, Allstate, Grainger, Toys-R-Us, Lab Safety, Siemens, Google, Microsoft and Deutsche Telekom AG (to name a few!).  

Enquiro is a privately held search engine marketing agency, headquartered in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, with a US office in Silicon Valley, California.

About Enquiro Research

Enquiro Research is a division of Enquiro Search Solutions. Research plays a key role in understanding how people use search engines, navigate websites and engage with advertising. To support its work as a search agency, the research division has conducted and published the results of multiple studies on B2B buyer behavior, and eye tracking studies which defined "Google's Golden Triangle". Enquiro Research also offers usability testing, ad engagement studies, and customized marketing research.

Sr. Account Executive - Research & Consulting

Esporta Wash Systems Inc.

Part of the founding start up sales team, prospecting and building a franchise network, leveraging the Esporta technology & wash system across North America - servicing the fire & restoration industry.

Business Development Manager

Tournament Sports

Tournament Sports Marketing is Canada's largest sports distribution & marketing company. Tournament Sports operates 5 business units focusing on Golf, Curling, Skates, and Corporate Incentive. I managed the business development and account relationships across all five business units of Tournament Sports in British Columbia.

Tournament Golf:

Tournament Golf was founded in 1989 as an extension of the Company’s core sporting goods business. The Company has exclusive Canadian licensing or distribution agreements with Antigua & Slazenger Sportswear, Bridgestone/Precept Golf.  Products distribution to golf retailers include golf apparel, bags, balls, gloves, luggage, headwear and golf clubs.  In late 2006, Tournament Sports expanded its Canadian distribution by acquiring exclusive global rights to Nancy Lopez Golf. This division markets golf products to on-course pro shops, off-course golf specialty stores and selected sporting goods retailers.

Territory Business Manager

Chris is the Chief Growth Officer at Flybits, leading the company’s strategic expansion and go-to-market execution in financial services. With over 20 years of experience in digital, fintech, and marketing, he has helped global brands including; Google, TD Bank, Amex, Zurich, and Microsoft all leverage data to deepen customer engagement and drive revenue growth.

At Flybits, he helps global financial institutions turn cardholder data into intelligent, real-time experiences that drive engagement and portfolio growth. By leveraging AI-driven insights, Flybits enables banks to anticipate cardholder needs, deliver hyper-personalized interactions, and create seamless, value-driven journeys. This approach goes beyond transactions—helping issuers strengthen loyalty, reduce attrition, and unlock new revenue streams across the cardholder lifecycle.

Prior to Flybits, Chris led Global Partnerships at Clearco, driving 25% of the company’s revenue through a scalable partner ecosystem. He also served as President & COO of GetintheLoop, revolutionizing local shopping through SaaS-powered retail offers, and prior as VP & Head of the Mediative Consulting Group.

Chris serves as Chairman of Accelerate Okanagan, is a start-up advisor, and a guest lecturer at the University of British Columbia. He is also a Mentor with TBDC Horizon, where he helps international startups scale in North America.

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