Founders
Our management team is led by Michael Jones, Chairman of our board of directors and our Chief Executive Officer, and Peter Pham, our President and one of our directors, and includes Greg Gilman, Tom Dare, Priscilla Guevara and April Henry.
Michael Jones
Michael Jones
As a founder of Science, Mike leverages his operational expertise and keen entrepreneurial talent to help founders scale highly profitable and successful businesses. Under Mike’s leadership, Science develops predictive strategies for portfolio companies, and the firm overall, that tap into future societal shifts and disrupt entrenched markets. He was one of the earliest investors to see the potential of the D2C e-commerce model and brought Dollar Shave Club into Science to incubate it. Dollar Shave Club went on to be acquired by Unilever for $1 billion, making it the first ever billion dollar exit for a D2C brand.
A longtime Internet executive, entrepreneur, and strategic adviser, Mike has spent his career growing businesses ranging from early stage startups to private equity-backed assets to public media companies.
Mike’s ability to predict the next shift extends beyond his work at Science to when he served as the CEO of MySpace. In his role at MySpace he foresaw the impact of social influence over software, a predictive strategy he also leveraged as CEO of Userplane (acquired by AOL), and in the investment of HouseParty (acquired by Epic Games) and angel investment in Maker Studios (acquired by Disney). Mike’s work with Mammoth Media, Hello Society and Famebit also highlights how he spotted the future of content and built these brands to thrive at the onset of GenZ as content consumers and influencer takeover.
With his experience and expertise investing in and guiding both large and small companies, Mike focuses on strategy, growth, and operational efficiency, which have resulted in over $2 billion in exits.
Peter Pham
Peter Pham
A relentless learner and meaningful builder, Peter Pham has partnered with both underdogs and legendary founders to build some of the biggest companies in technology. Since the beginning of his career, Peter has assembled a substantial network in Silicon Valley, cross-pollinating industries, services, personalities, and products. His network brought D2C beverage company Liquid Death into Science. Liquid Death has grown faster in its first two years than other notable beverages such as Red Bull and is currently the fastest growing water brand in Whole Foods.
Peter has had more than $2.5 billion in exits and raised over $600 million in capital across different early-stage startups from top Silicon Valley investors. Peter’s other seed stage angel investments and advising outside of Science include Tala (raised $800 million in 2019), Tonal (raised $110 million in September 2020), Ustream.tv (sold for $180 million), Scopely (valued at $3.3 billion), Kabam (sold for over $1 billion) and Ring (sold for $1 billion). Prior to Science, Peter was the VP of Business Development at Photobucket, where, as part of the founding team, he drove growth to 61 million users and led its $300 million sale to Fox Interactive Media, a division of NewsCorporation, in 2007. Prior to Photobucket, Peter was the co-founder & CEO of BillShrink/TruAxis, which was acquired by MasterCard in 2012.
Greg Gilman
Greg Gilman
Greg has more than 20 years of relevant experience as an executive, entrepreneur, investor, and attorney and is responsible for developing the firm’s resilient structure. His unique background lends itself well to the oversight of the firm’s investments in regulated industries, such as Fintech/Financial Services and Healthcare. Over the course of his career, he also has been an active angel investor or advisor to dozens of companies, including DocStoc (acquired by Intuit), Tsavo Media (acquired by Cybermedia), Userplane (acquired by AOL), Maker Studios (acquired by Disney), PlutoTV (acquired by Viacom), Scopely, and ZipRecruiter. Greg saw the potential in digital assets long before the topic was mainstream. Drawing on his legal and financial services background, Greg architected the sale of one of the world’s first compliant digital securities in order to raise capital for the Science Blockchain incubator, and he is now recognized as a global thought leader on digital assets. His experience as a pioneer in digital assets provides him with invaluable insight as he helps shepherd Science’s investment in Protego Trust Company, a de novo financial institution with a unique charter enabling it to provide a comprehensive suite of digital asset-related services to institutional clients. As the Executive Chair of Protego, he has worked extensively with financial regulators to create appropriate policies and procedures for the custody, trading, and compliant reporting of digitally native assets. He also is the Co-Founder and Executive Chair of RxVantage, a healthcare data and informatics company that intelligently connects healthcare providers with life science experts as needed, which is currently used by the sales representatives of every major life sciences company and has been named one of the top 10 medical practice solutions providers in the United States.
Tom Dare
Tom Dare
Tom leads fund and portfolio operations for Science, tapping into his more than 20 years of experience building and managing Internet companies through startup, growth, turnaround stages and entering public markets. His keen eye for identifying what the future of work will look like shows up regularly in his modern and mobile approach to portfolio construction. He is currently on the boards of PlayVS and Empirical. Prior to Science, Tom served as the VP of Business Intelligence for MySpace and was the chief operating officer of Tsavo Media, an online publishing network of more than 400 owned and operated sites.
Tom’s experience in the public sphere stems from spending four years in charge of strategic development for Spark and financial planning and analysis (“FP&A”) for Spark’s consumer website, serving 25 million customers with growth through multiple acquisitions, where he also prepared roadshow and analyst presentations for its listing on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) listing and private equity investment. Prior to Spark, Tom was part of the founding management team at Move (NASDAQ: MOVE), an online real estate listing service serving consumers and brokers that was acquired by News Corp. At Move, Tom also managed Move’s FP&A and consumer website, from its early stages through its initial public offering, including 11 acquisitions worth $1.25 billion in stock and cash, and prepared analyst and road show materials to support Move’s $140 million initial public offering and $913 million follow-on offering.
Priscilla Guevara
Priscilla Guevara
Priscilla is currently the Global Head of Investor Relations of Science, where she leads LP relations, communications and marketing, and events across Science’s funds. Additionally, she leads the structuring and capital formation efforts for Science’s special purpose vehicles and new opportunity vehicles.
Prior to Science, Priscilla served as an investor at ZX Ventures (Anheuser-Busch’s consumer venture capital arm). With ZX Ventures, Priscilla oversaw its technology platform, which included global deals in the supply chain and logistics and marketing/adtech space, among others. Additionally, she was an investor in sustainable assets on behalf of family offices, and led strategy and operations at SevenRooms and business development at Whispr Group. In addition, in 2002, she started her early international experience on Wall Street focusing on asset management, capital markets, and regulatory at Sumitomo Mitsui, Neuberger Berman/Lehman, and JCAM/Moore Capital.
She is currently the Chair of the Senior Women in Private Equity Group (West Coast Chapter) and an Active Member of 100 Women in Finance. She is also currently on the Development Committee of the James Beard Foundation, having previously served on the board of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (NYC Chapter) as the Chair of Society Ties, its young professionals group.
April Henry
April Henry
April is currently the Head of Corporate Development for Science. She is also a Special Advisor to WPP founder, Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital, PLC, and she sits on the board of directors of cmorq, Inc, the leading real-time digital asset audit and analytics platform billed as “Plaid for blockchain” and recently recognized as a CNBC Upstart 100 company. Previously, April served as an observer on the board of directors of Kensho Technologies (acquired by S&P Global) and as the chairman of the board of directors of Flirtic, Inc., a mobile dating platform in Europe.
In October 2018, April became the Founder & Managing Partner of Hawkeye Digital, LLC, a consultancy focused on driving revenue growth, core decision-making and business transformation for companies at critical points in their growth cycle. In this capacity, she advises and consults with a range of business types around the world, from early strategic business planning and equity fundraising stages to more developed businesses within incubators, investment funds, corporate digital studios and beyond, running the gamut of the digital media, e-commerce, emerging healthcare, wellness and consumer sectors.
Also in October 2018, April became the co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer for EQUELL, Inc., an early stage digital wellness and rewards platform that launched in June 2019. In this role, she oversaw business development partnerships, marketing, digital advertising, e-commerce, recruitment and strategy. April continues to serve as a strategic advisor to EQUELL.
From 2016 to 2018, April was the Senior Vice President of Business Development for the world’s leading business news network, CNBC, LLC, where she sat on the NBCUniversal Management Committee and was a founding member of the CNBC Diversity Council. From 2011 to 2015, April served as a Vice President at Yahoo, Inc. in leadership roles encompassing a range of responsibilities including strategy, corporate development, mergers & acquisitions in the U.S. and Europe, leading its Alibaba investment’s board support and recapitalization team, as well as human resources and organizational transformation. In this role, she developed and led the M&A Deal Review Committee’s operations for the CEO and Chief Development Officer of Yahoo. This followed nearly five years at News Corporation from 2006 to 2011, in Europe and the U.S. developing strategic board presentations, investments, acquisitions, joint ventures and business development partnerships at News Europe, Fox Interactive and MySpace.
Prior to that, from 2005 to 2006, April Henry was an investment associate at Index Ventures in its London, U.K. office. April’s corporate experience began with 11 years at Morgan Stanley, Inc. from 1994 to 2005 in global operations then as a technology and telecommunications equity research analyst responsible for both lead and joint stock coverage as well as research support for initial public offerings and secondary transactions.
Board of Directors
Jeff Bonforte
Jeff Bonforte
Jeff Bonforte will serve as an independent director upon completion of this offering. Mr. Bonforte is the Chief Executive Officer of Grindr LLC, a social networking app. Mr. Bonforte is also a Managing Partner at Catapult Capital LLC, a private equity firm that targets investments in internet, advertising, media, consumer and broader technology. Mr. Bonforte is the primary product and technology expert at Catapult Capital. Mr. Bonforte has raised over $50 million in venture capital and realized over $100 million in exit proceeds. Mr. Bonforte is also a Member of the Board of Directors of JibJab Catapult CA LLC, a digital entertainment studio. Mr. Bonforte is also a Managing Director of Brown Dog Capital. From 2013 to 2018, Mr. Bonforte served as the Senior Vice President, Communications, Data and Research, at Yahoo Inc., a web service provider. In that role, Mr. Bonforte thwarted Yahoo Mail’s user and revenue decline, ultimately bolstering a 70% increase in revenue and 5% user growth during his tenure. Mr. Bonforte holds a Bachelor’s degree in Classical Civilizations from the University of California, Los Angeles. From 2015 to 2020, Mr. Bonforte served as a Member of the Board of Directors of Playworks, a nonprofit that supports student learning and physical health. Mr. Bonforte was selected to serve on our Board of Directors because of his experience as an executive in Internet-related industries and his experience in investing in technology, both of which are expected bring valuable insight to the Board.
Bernard Kim
Bernard Kim
Bernard Kim will serve as an independent director upon completion of this offering. Since 2019, Mr. Kim has served as President of Publishing for Zynga Inc., a mobile games developer and operator. As President of Publishing, Mr. Kim is responsible for Zynga’s global marketing, user acquisition, ad monetization, revenue, communications, consumer insights, data science, product management, business development, and partnerships. Mr. Kim is also responsible for managing Zynga’s mergers and acquisitions. From 2006 to 2016, Mr. Kim was the Senior Vice President of Mobile Publishing at Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), a video game company. As the Senior Vice President of Mobile Publishing, Mr. Kim oversaw EA’s mergers and acquisitions, mobile distributions, strategy, product management, analytics, network engagement, marketing, revenue demand planning, business development, and third-party publishing. Mr. Kim holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Communications from Boston College. Mr. Kim was selected to serve on our Board of Directors because of his experience as an executive for video game developers and his experience in managing mergers and acquisitions, both of which are expected bring valuable insight to the Board.
Colette Taylor
Colette Taylor
Colette Taylor will serve as an independent director upon completion of this offering. Ms. Taylor is a member of the Board of Directors and Audit Committee of Partners in Care Trust Co., a $160 million Trust Bank providing fiduciary and care management services. Ms. Taylor is also a Board Member and Chair of the Audit Committee of Guardianship Services of Seattle Trust Co., a $300 million Trust Bank and certified professional guardian agency, which provides financial management and care and property management services. Ms. Taylor is also a Board Member, Chair of the Audit Committee, a Member of the Compensation Committee and a Member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee for, both, SSACA and SSACC. From 2005 to 2020, Ms. Taylor served as CEO, President and Chair of Russell Investment Trust Company. She was responsible for the $50 billion Washington State charted Trust Bank. Ms. Taylor holds a Master of Business Administration degree from City University in Seattle, Washington, and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Western Washington University. She currently is the chair of Goodwill’s Olympic & Rainier Region. Ms. Taylor was selected to serve on our Board of Directors because of her extensive experience supervising regulatory filings, supervising financial reporting and improving internal controls, all of which are expected bring valuable insight to the Board.
News Releases
SEC Filings
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Contacts
Media Inquiries:
Maggie Squires
Science@moxiegrouppr.com
