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Policy ideas for a healthier America - The Next #57
Talks about chronic disease crisis, health and wellness brands and HSA/FSA funds
JM
Justin Mares
Investor at Icon
Austin, Texas
Overview
Justin Mares is the Founder of TrueMed in Austin, Texas, with a background in new business development, online marketing, and entrepreneurship. His notable career highlights include founding Kettle & Fire and co-authoring the book "Traction Book" while investing in companies like Archive at the seed stage.
Work Experience
Co-Founder, CEO
2022 - Current
TrueMed allows health and wellness brands and providers to tap into the $150B in consumer tax-free funds.
TrueMed is a mechanism for payments that enables health + wellness businesses to accept HSA/FSA funds.
Raised $3,500,000.00 from Mark Hyman.
Founder
2015
Founded in 2015, Kettle & Fire is the leading, shelf-stable bone broth brand on a mission to make foods that nourish our bodies and the planet. We're the largest bone broth brand in the country, and on a mission to build a better kind of food company.
Kettle & Fire is a bone broth company that combines marrow bones with premium organic vegetables and filtered water in steel kettles.
Raised $8,000,000.00 from Rocana Venture Partners, Hedgewood, CAVU Consumer Partners and Plus Capital.
Venture Partner
2022
Venture Partner at Long Journey Ventures, a seed stage venture fund started by Cyan Banister + Lee Jacobs. At Long Journey we're focused investing in "magically weird" companies run by good humans who are building the future. If that's you, please get in touch!
Long Journey Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm focused on early and new investments.
Co-Founder
2021
Surely is a beverage company that offers a range of winery that fits any lifestyle.
Raised $2,500,000.00 from Bedrock, Long Journey Ventures, Spacecadet Ventures and Bossa Invest.
Co-Founder
2016
Investor
2024
Icon (AI Admaker, icon.me) helps brands create winning ads with AI. Funded by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund & execs of OpenAI, Ramp, & more.
Founder
2020
HelpKitchen started in April 2020 as a non-profit response to the food security and COVID crisis. We connect food insecure individuals with partner restaurants and organizations that can get them fed, all covered by donor dollars. HelpKitchen has raised $10mm+ that's gone directly towards feeding those in need and keeping restaurants in business.
Co-Author
2012
Traction Book is a startup guide to customer acquisition.
Co-Founder (incubated) and Board Member
2020 - 2022
Founded to do payment term extensions for CPG brands. Upside was acquired by Ampla in November 2022.
Upside Financing tackles one of the biggest problems across the CPG industry: mis-matched payment terms.
Raised $10,500,000.00 from Infinity Ventures, M13, Deep Lake Capital, Upper90, R-Squared Ventures and Matrix.
Education
BSBA
2008 - 2012
Investments
Latest Articles
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The Next, Episode #56
Talks about health and wellness, regulatory capture and chronic disease crisis
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Our insane approach to regulating chemical exposures
Talks about health and wellness brands, HSA/FSA funds and chronic disease crisis
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The Great American Poisoning
Talks about animal captivity, obesity in animals and zoochosis