Nick Cooney

Nick Cooney founded and is currently the Managing Parter at Lever VC ( http://www.levervc.com), a U.S.-Hong Kong venture capital fund that makes early stage investments in alternative protein food companies. (These include plant-based meat, dairy and egg products, as well as “clean” or cell-based meat, dairy and egg products, and related service and technology companies.) Lever VC operates globally with staff and offices in Hong Kong S.A.R., the United States, Israel, and Europe. Nick has worked in the plant-based and alternative protein foods industry for nearly twenty years. He has completed over 50 investments into alternative protein companies. Nick serves on the board or as board observer of several portfolio companies. For entrepreneurs and companies that are interested in submitting a pitch deck or other proposal to Lever VC, or for other investors interested in connecting to discuss the alternative protein space, please submit an email through the Lever VC website: http://www.levervc.com . Prior to founding Lever VC, Nick was the co-founder and managing trustee of New Crop Capital, a private venture capital trust making investments in the alternative protein space. Nick is also co-founder of several non-profits working in the alternative protein sector, including the Good Food Institute, the largest NGO operating in the sector. In addition to his investment experience, Nick Cooney has spent nearly twenty years conducing policy and consulting work in the food industry. He has overseen $4 million yearly budgets and a team of 45 working to market alternative protein products in both established and emerging markets in North America, South America and Europe, as well as to promote similar food policy improvements. Nick has worked with hundreds of leading food companies across several continents, including Nestle, Costco, CarreFour, Kroger, and others. Nick began his career conducting entrepreneurship programs for the University of Pennsylvania (through a Wharton School-affiliated program) and launching a healthy food startup. Nick’s work in the food and food policy space has been covered by hundreds of media outlets worldwide, including Time, Reuters, USA Today, and numerous others. He has lectured on the space extensively, including throughout Europe and in the United States at places such as Harvard, Yale, Google, and Craigslist. He is also the author of a textbook on alternative protein consumers, Veganomics (2013), which provides a comprehensive look at data around why consumers choose these products, what distinguishes these products (including heavy consumers) from others, what barriers they face in choosing these products, etc. Nick has also written several other books: How To Be Great At Doing Good and Change Of Heart. More on his books is available on his Amazon author page at: https://www.amazon.com/Nick-Cooney/e/B004CTYG1Y . Nick grew up in Philadelphia and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Hofstra University. He currently splits his time between the greater New York City area and China/Hong Kong S.A.R. More on Nick Cooney is available online on his website at: http://nickcooney.com . His personal email is: nick@levervc.com . Nick’s work websites are at http://www.nickcooney.com and at http://www.nickcooney.org . You can also see more about Nick at the following social media pages and links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Cooney https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickcooney1 http://www.nickcooney.org/nick-cooney-about/ https://www.facebook.com/nick.cooney1 https://www.amazon.com/Nick-Cooney/e/B004CTYG1Y%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4252173.Nick_Cooney https://medium.com/@NickCooney/whats-in-a-bio-the-new-nick-cooney-biography-3ce8daffb003 https://www.crunchbase.com/person/nick-cooney https://ar-conference.org/2013/nick_cooney.php https://twitter.com/nickcooney2?lang=en https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nick-cooney-lever-vc-invest-130000541.html https://www.audible.com/author/Nick-Cooney/B004CTYG1Y https://thriveglobal.com/stories/meet-nick-cooney-on-an-analysis-of-the-healthy-lifestyle-and-the-people-who-prefer-to-lead-a-healthy-life/ https://animalcharityevaluators.org/charity-reviews/charity-conversations/2016-conversation-with-nick-cooney/ https://upside.fm/nick-cooney-lever-vc/ https://qz.com/author/nickcooney/ https://www.vegan.com/book-review-nick-cooneys-change-of-heart/ https://www.chicvegan.com/tag/nick-cooney https://www.worldofvegan.com/tag/nick-cooney/ https://www.meetup.com/sacvegansociety-org/events/107676062/ https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2019-09-05/nick-cooney-launches-the-lever-vc-fund https://inspirery.com/nick-cooney/ https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/06/11/investor-i-wouldnt-bet-against-the-plant-based-meat-space.html https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2020/08/18/Lever-VC-launches-new-fund-targeting-alternative-protein-deploys-first-5m-in-10-startups-spanning-plant-based-eggs-to-cell-cultured-breastmilk https://www.just-food.com/interview/covid-just-adds-yet-another-tailwind-investor-nick-cooney-on-the-opportunities-for-alternative-protein-fund-lever-vc_id144343.aspx https://www.instagram.com/nick.cooney2 https://www.nickcooney.com https://wiki2.org/en/Nick_Cooney https://books.google.com/books/about/Veganomics.html?id=Cl2UtQEACAAJ https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/nick-cooney/394842530 https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Nick_Cooney https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nick_Cooney https://soundcloud.com/audible/how-to-be-great-at-doing-good https://www.youtube.com/c/NickCooney1 https://www.pinterest.com/nickcooney1/_saved/ https://vimeo.com/nickcooney https://www.tumblr.com/blog/nickcooney1