Joe Tonnos (Ketch Ventures & Mistral Equity Partners) - Cricket Protein, Tequila and Investing in Sustainability

Joe Tonnos is a Principal at Mistral Equity Partners and a Co-Founder of Ketch Ventures. He invests across the consumer spectrum from seed/pre-series investments at Ketch to growth equity, private equity buyouts and even some public market investments at Mistral Equity Partners. Joe is also a Venture Partner at Natureza – a newly formed consumer VC focused on Series A investments. Some of his investments include Los Sundays, byCHLOE, and Oros.

In this episode we discuss -

1. What attracted him to investing and venture capital? What attracted him specifically to consumer How does he think about portfolio construction? How did he start Ketch? At the early stages when there isn’t much traction, what's his due diligence process? What qualities does he like to see in founders?
2. How he's thinking about coronavirus as it relates to consumer investing? Is he shifting strategy away/towards companies/verticals? Is he pausing investments in a particular space? Is he concerned about some current portfolio companies' ability to raise? How he'sadjusting to new work protocols (remote working, etc) and if so, is that having an impact?
3. What are some consumer trends that he is excited about? What is one thing that he would change about venture capital? What is one company that is in his anti-portfolio? What did he learn from that experience? What’s one piece of advice for founders of consumer startups?

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You can also follow your host, Mike, on Twitter @mikegelb. You can also follow for episode announcements @consumervc.