Investor Profile: Conscience VC - Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Science-led consumer startups are often told they are too early, too technical or too hard to explain, and Conscience VC funding was created for exactly that gap. This profile explains how to get funding from Conscience VC, the Austin-based firm founded by Ariana Thacker, and what its small debut fund could and could not do. Conscience VC invests at the intersection of consumer products and deep technology, backing companies whose advantage comes from science, not only from brand or distribution.

Investment thesis

Founder Ariana Thacker describes science as her first love and startups as her second, and the firm turns that pairing into a thesis: consumer companies with technical defensibility. The firm therefore looks for companies that benefit consumers but have defensible technology, from digital health and treatments to physical products, including areas such as gaming, rather than pure brand plays.

Sectors and stages

Conscience VC is based in Austin, Texas, and was launched in 2020. It largely operates at pre-seed stage but will invest at anything pre-Series A, according to its founder's account of the debut fund. Directory data as of March 2025 puts its portfolio at eight companies, concentrated in seed rounds in the United States, across life sciences, high technology and health technology.

Fund size and cheque size

The firm's debut fund closed at $10 million, after an oversubscribed raise that doubled its initial target, according to TechCrunch reporting in July 2022. Backers named in that reporting include Screendoor Partners, Foundation Capital and Carta, alongside unicorn founders. Cheques from the debut fund were up to $250,000.

Notable portfolio

By July 2022 the firm had invested in 17 companies, according to the same reporting, including Last Gameboard, a Denver startup making an electronic board game that can simulate a variety of games. Another named investment is Aqua Cultured Foods, which built a fermentation-based platform for whole-cut, fungi-based seafood alternatives and raised an oversubscribed $2.1 million pre-seed round in 2021 with Conscience VC among its investors. Note: directory data later listed Aqua Cultured Foods as having ceased operations in January 2026.

Partners and team

Ariana Thacker is the founder and solo general partner. Before launching Conscience VC, she joined the founding team of Mirus Energy with a former professor at UCLA, then worked at deep-tech-focused Rhapsody Venture Partners, where she learned venture investing before deciding her consumer-meets-deep-tech thesis deserved its own firm.

Programs, credits and perks

The firm did build a founder tool: a fundraising app containing 1,000 other potential investors from Thacker's network, organised by sector and stage, so portfolio founders could move quickly on follow-on fundraising. Thacker has said the firm is obsessed with high return on founders' time, and that tool reflects that priority.

How to apply for funding

Directory listings for the firm publish the contact [email protected], and that is the most direct route found in the sources reviewed, though it was not confirmed on a readable official homepage, which carries only a short tagline. A pitch should therefore be sent to that address with a concise explanation of the science, the consumer problem, the defensibility of the product, the stage and the amount sought, plus evidence of traction or technical validation.