Meghan Markle has used her latest podcast to interview a friend who runs a business making instant oat milk ‘superlattes’, five years after she invested in the company.
The Duchess of Sussex spoke to Clevr Blends co-founder Hannah Mendoza in episode five of her Confessions of a Female Founder series, which came out today.
Ms Mendoza, who grew up in Buckinghamshire before moving to the US, is the daughter of wealthy British businessman and advertising veteran Marc Mendoza.
She set up Clevr in 2017 with university friend Roger Coppola after they sold their creations from a van around California before opening a pop-up coffee shop.
The company was Meghan’s first private investment in 2020 after she stepped down as a senior royal and moved to the US and the business has been growing ever since.
In today’s podcast, Meghan spoke to Ms Mendoza about dealing with tough days, saying: ‘The safety of stream of consciousness with someone who understands it…
‘That is part of that sisterhood and that understanding of, ‘Okay, every day is not going to be the same. Some days are going to be harder to show up as your best and shiniest self’.
‘Maybe on that day something really painful happened in your real life, but for your team, that is not how you show up. You can’t.’
Clevr is based in Santa Barbara near where Meghan lives in an £11million Montecito mansion with her husband Prince Harry and their children Prince Archie, who is six today, and Princess Lilibet, three. Meghan starred in an advert for the brand in 2023.
The Duchess of Sussex is pictured with Clevr Blends co-founder and friend Hannah Mendoza
Meghan starred in an advert for Clevr Blends in 2023. She is pictured behind Hannah Mendoza
California-based Clevr Blends sells 15 types of ‘superlatte’, with bags of 14 servings costing $29 (£22) or $23 (£17) on a subscription model, plus postage costs on orders under $47 (£35)
The firm sells 15 types of ‘superlatte’, with bags of 14 servings costing $29 (£22) or $23 (£17) on a subscription model, plus postage costs on orders under $47 (£35). It also sells bundles for between $48 (£36) and $149 (£112), and four ‘superteas’.
The products feature ingredients such as lion’s mane, a mushroom that is said to improve your memory, and ashwagandha, a root that apparently helps reduce stress.
The company’s website states that Ms Mendoza began making co-founder Mr Coppola ‘reishi cappuccinos as a nervous-system soothing alternative to coffee’ while he was experiencing grief, depression and anxiety as his mother was dying.
It adds that the duo ‘started diving deeper into how mushrooms and adaptogens could be allies in our mental health journeys’, before Ms Mendoza spent a year ‘formulating a latte that was barista-quality, truly just-add-water, and had the science-backed benefits of a supplement’.
The Duchess is listed on the company’s website as a ‘Clevr advocate and adviser’ alongside a photo of herself with Ms Mendoza and a quote under the heading ‘what our fans say’ which reads: ‘One of my favourite ways to start and end each day.’
During the podcast, Meghan spoke about her decision to invest in Clevr.
She said: ‘The funniest thing about it is I had never invested in something before… You saw me when I was very pregnant and my friend sent over this gift basket filled with an assortment of products that he thought I would like.
Meghan is seen in the 2023 Clevr ad as an intern while its boss Hannah Mendoza walks past
Meghan fails to fist bump another member of the team in the final shot in the 2023 advert
‘One of the things within this big basket was this product. I said, ‘Turmeric latte, and just add water? Okay.’ I tried it and I looked at the back. I said, ‘Who is this person?…What is this company?’
‘It’s so bizarre because I didn’t have a portfolio at the time. I didn’t have a roster of female founders that I invested in. It was the first and truly organic – all puns intended – experience of looking at something and saying, ‘I want to support this’.
‘I was watching a lot of Shark Tank at the time. And I said, ‘This is not Shark Tank. Think of this as Dolphin Tank. These are very friendly waters.’
The brand was given a huge boost in 2020 by Meghan sending a sample hamper to her friend Oprah Winfrey, who also then promoted the brand. The chat show host is now listed on its website as ‘G.O.A.T.’ (‘greatest of all time’) under the quote: ‘My new drink of choice for morning and night.’
Speaking about Winfrey, Meghan told the podcast: ‘I want this [Clevr Blends] to succeed, but I also want to authentically share it, in the same way that you authentically show up…
‘I remember calling you and saying, ‘I just want to share it with my wonderful neighbour, Miss Oprah Winfrey.’ It was a turmeric latte that I loved the most, the Golden Latte.’
Ms Mendoza then said: ‘There’s a little count of how many people are on our website. Three people are looking at our website. And then it just started climbing and climbing and climbing.
‘And there were 5,000, 10,000 people on our website, within a matter of 30 seconds… I see the Instagram tag: ‘Oprah tagged you in a post.’ I fell off my chair.’
Clevr co-founder Hannah Mendoza grew up in Buckinghamshire before moving to the US
The Duchess of Sussex launched the eight-part ‘Confessions Of A Female Founder’ podcast
Winfrey wrote on Instagram at the time in 2020: ‘On the first day of Christmas my neighbour ‘M’ sent to me…a basket of deliciousness!’
She said it was ‘Yes that M’ followed by a crown emoji, and added: ‘My new drink of choice for the morning and night. Wish I had @clevrblends sooner cause I would’ve added it to my Favorite Things list. #HappyHolidays.’
Winfrey was filmed making a cup of her ‘new favourite’ turmeric Golden SuperLatte to instructions she said she received from ‘M’.
During today’s podcast Meghan also spoke about her own business as As Ever, which saw its first products including raspberry spread, flower sprinkles and herbal tea sell out just over a month ago.
She said: ‘When I think about big milestones for my own business, As Ever… Netflix coming on as my business partner is huge. Just having a global powerhouse that believed in me, and the site selling out in the first 45 minutes of launch – everything, every single piece that we had been working on.
‘That told me that customers – people – believed in me and this vision. That’s all you really want as a founder. That becomes your proof point that those late nights and the midnight musings are worth it.’
Meghan also spoke about waking up in the middle of the night thinking about a problem, saying: ‘Oh my gosh, one day I just need to write an entire thing called called ‘3am musings’… the things that I wake up and write down at 3am in the morning…’
During a wide-ranging chat on the podcast, Ms Mendoza spoke about her favourite songs, saying: ‘When my plane touched down at LAX [Los Angeles International Airport], I listened to ‘Party In the USA’ by Miley Cyrus, in my headphones.’
The wellness product has also been backed by Meghan’s friend Oprah Winfrey on Instagram
And Meghan said: ‘When my plane touched down at LAX and I was going back and forth when I was filming [Suits] in Toronto for a long time… I would always hear Joni Mitchell’s ‘California, I’m coming home’ every single time in my head, and I would just go, ‘I’m home!’
Meghan has been building a portfolio of investments since moving to the US, and her involvement with Clevr Blends was the first to be made public.
The Duchess also revealed in the podcast that she was the first investor in the business.
The business now has seven or eight full-time staff, according to the podcast.
At the time of the announcement in 2020, Meghan said: ‘This investment is in support of a passionate female entrepreneur who prioritises building community alongside her business.
‘I’m proud to invest in Hannah’s commitment to sourcing ethical ingredients and creating a product that I personally love and has a holistic approach to wellness. I believe in her and I believe in her company.’
Meghan is understood to have contacted Ms Mendoza to learn more about the firm after trying the product, and her investment has included mentoring.
Ms Mendoza described her excitement at the partnership in 2020 and praised Meghan, saying at the time: ‘Entrepreneurs need funding, but they also need advisers who care deeply about what they are building.’
Ms Mendoza grew up in the UK but moved to California after seeing an article about Harry Potter actress Emma Watson applying to university in the US, according to a previous report in Business Insider in 2021.
California-based Hannah Mendoza set up Clevr in 2017 with a university friend
She studied psychology at the University of California and her family own a seven-bedroom holiday home in Padstow, Cornwall.
Ms Mendoza said in today’s podcast that moving to California aged 18 ‘was the biggest and most transformative decision of my life’.
She added: ‘I grew up just outside of London. I never really found my people there. I had a bit of a rough time in high school. I was a strange child. I wasn’t very good on picking up on societal norms and confirming to them in a way that made it easier to fit in.
‘I was very, very quirky, and I think it’s hard when you’re a teenager, when you’re a young child, you have that before people value those traits in people.’
Meghan said that Ms Mendoza had a ‘met a whole different vibe and energy around you’ in California after she had got ‘on the other side on the pond’.
Today’s podcast was released four days after Harry’s bombshell plea for ‘reconciliation’, and a day after rest of the Royal Family put on a united front in London to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day in London.
Harry said last Friday that his ‘devastating’ loss in the Court of Appeal, which rejected his bid to reinstate his round-the-clock police bodyguard in the UK, meant his family could never return to Britain.
He also claimed in a dramatic BBC television interview that King Charles will not speak to him and he does not know ‘how much longer my father has’ as he spoke of his hopes for a ‘reconciliation’ with his family.
The Duke described his court defeat as a ‘good old-fashioned establishment stitch-up’, but his decision to speak out appears to have worsened the chances of an end to his estrangement, amid suggestions the King and his brother William will fear more than ever that any conversation with Harry would end up in the public domain.
Meghan earlier posted a photo of her husband and their children in an apparent show of solidarity.
Prince Harry spoke to the BBC last Friday in response to losing his Court of Appeal challenge
The Duchess of Sussex posted a photo of her husband Prince Harry and their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet on Instagram last Sunday in an apparent show of solidarity
The black and white image, which was not accompanied by a message on Meghan’s Instagram, showed Harry, from behind, walking with Lilibet on his shoulders and Archie holding his hand in a garden.
Since the start of March, the Duchess has launched her Netflix show With Love, Meghan and lifestyle brand As Ever, appeared at a Time100 summit in New York and posted a series of Instagram videos including one featuring Lilibet’s accent.
She also released a new episode of Confessions Of A Female Founder each Tuesday last month – including interviews with Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd; Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani and Highbrow Hippie co-founder Kadi Lee.
In episode four last week she interviewed IT Cosmetics co-founder Jamie Kern Lima – just one day after giving her first ever podcast interview to the entrepreneur.
In the third episode on April 22, Meghan spoke to Lee and branded American Riviera Orchard, the former name of her lifestyle business, a ‘word salad’, adding: ‘I didn’t love that so much.’
The second episode with Saujani on April 15 saw Meghan speak about ‘juggling it all’ and nursing a poorly Archie and Lilibet at home.
And in the first episode with Wolfe Herd on April 8, the Duchess said she suffered medical complications after childbirth, and had to cope with the ‘world’ not knowing.
Meghan’s eight-part series with Lemonada Media launched last month with the promise of ‘girl talk’ and advice on how to create ‘billion-dollar businesses’.
