M13 Announces New Leadership To Build Out Venture Engine As Part Of Founders First Strategy

LOS ANGELES, June 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- M13, a full-service venture firm with investments in companies such as Lyft, Ring, Rothy's, Daily Harvest, Pinterest and others, today announced a series of senior leadership hires to the growing firm, as well as an Executive on Loan from P&G.

The new additions all have firsthand experience building, scaling, managing, and developing companies. The growing team is designed to fuel M13's "founders first" strategy by deepening the firm's ability to connect with founders from concept through launch. The expanding leadership team of world class talent allows M13 to continue to build out three core areas, across its Venture Engine, all in service to successful founder experiences and brand outcomes.

M13's venture fund provides early-stage capital to teams building bold companies across the consumer economy. The Propulsion team provides strategic counsel, operational expertise and a constellation of talent and resources to accelerate startup growth. M13's Launchpad serves as an incubator for founding teams, products and practices to successfully take ideas from inception to launch.  Working together across these three teams, M13's expanded leadership will continue to equip founders with the right people, platforms and partnerships to build high-velocity businesses.

Following the addition of Karl Alomar as Managing Partner earlier this year, M13 has continued to grow with the following industry-leading executives joining the firm:

• Latif Peracha, General Partner - Latif will manage the venture fund for M13 and be primarily responsible for its portfolio investments. Latif was most recently the Managing Director at Virgin Group and spent eight years working closely with consumer-focused entrepreneur Richard Branson, where he played an active role in building and managing several Virgin companies including Virgin Hotels, Virgin Pulse and Virgin Galactic. He also managed the US venture strategy which included investments in Ring, Slack, Capsule and Square.

• Matt Hoffman, Partner & Head of Talent - Matt will be responsible for working with M13 portfolio companies to scale their teams and cultures, as part of M13's Propulsion Team, He will also lead all internal People Operations, recruiting and community-building efforts for both M13 and its Launchpad companies. Matt was previously VP, People at DigitalOcean, where in four years he helped scale the organization from under 100 employees to over 500 and win multiple awards and recognition for its talent, innovative culture and progressive People practices. Prior to that he spent three years as leading People Operations at Return Path, which during his tenure was named Fortune's #2 Best Place to Work in the US.

• Gautam Gupta, Partner - Gautam joins the investment team and brings deep operating expertise and founder empathy to the investment process. Gautam is the Co-founder and former CEO of NatureBox, a direct-to-consumer food company. As a personal investor Gautam's portfolio generated over $1B in annual sales and included BigCommerce, GoodData, Honest Company, Grammarly, Imperfect Produce, The Pill Club, Heap Analytics, Split.io and Pilot, among many others.

In addition, M13 announced that Mary Carmen (MC) Gasco-Buisson will also be working with the firm as Managing Director / Executive on Loan from P&G Ventures, a startup studio that creates brands in new categories at The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG). MC will lead the collaboration between M13 and P&G Ventures for Launchpad, M13's incubation studio that was launched earlier this year. MC will help build a sustainable model for Launchpad and P&G's partnership. She will also coach and mentor the co-founders of the brands in the incubator and members of the M13 team. MC has over 20 years of experience at P&G leading new brand creation as well as operations, strategy, marketing, business development and expansion for a wide range of global brands.

"We couldn't be more thrilled to have these stars join the M13 constellation," said Courtney Reum, co-founder and Partner. "At a time when startups in various industries are making a splash in our everyday lives, we want to help them gain access to trajectory-changing resources they need. To do that, we've hired the best and brightest operational minds to find, invest in and help accelerate these wonderful companies," he added. 

About M13

M13 is a Venture Engine, a full-service venture firm differentiated by the intersection of its Fund, Launchpad, and Propulsion team, which all work together to provide a platform for founding teams to create and develop high-growth businesses - shortcutting the learning curve so they can scale better, faster. M13 was founded by entrepreneurial brothers Courtney and Carter Reum, founders of F&B company VEEV, which sold to multi-billion dollar strategic acquirer, and named to Goldman Sachs' 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs. With over 80 direct investments in consumer and consumer tech, M13's portfolio totals over $125B in enterprise value. M13 has invested in companies including Lyft, Pinterest, Ring (acquired by Amazon in 2018), Rothy's, Daily Harvest, FabFitFun and more.

SOURCE M13