Nick Cooney came to venture investing not through finance or business school but through years of hands-on work in food policy and alternative protein adoption, later co-founding both the Good Food Institute and New Crop Capital, and he still tracks a proprietary database of over 1,200 alternative-protein companies worldwide. He also writes as an author on psychology and behavior change, and describes himself as drawn to building brand-new companies from scratch, valuing ambition and sound judgment in founders above generic polish.
About their Fund
Lever VC is a venture fund that invests entirely in alternative protein and, more recently, broader food and agriculture technology, built by investors who backed companies like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and JUST before starting the fund; it draws roughly 70% of its early capital from Hong Kong and Asian family offices and runs a dedicated China-focused fund and accelerator with Brinc in Guangzhou. The firm tracks a database of more than 1,200 alternative protein companies worldwide, looks for startups that can serve both a large low-cost market and a smaller premium market as a backup, and has backed unusual projects like cultivated pork fat and fermentation-made pet food protein, while also publishing its own scientific benchmarks so investors can evaluate cultivated meat startups using detailed technical metrics.
















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