Methodology is a premium, San Francisco-founded meal delivery service that ships chef-prepared, nutritionist-designed meals nationwide. Positioned around the idea of 'food as medicine,' its rotating weekly menus are free of gluten, dairy, refined sugar, canola oil and preservatives, cooked in avocado oil with sustainable proteins and 200+ plant varieties a week. Meals arrive ready to reheat in reusable glass jars and bentos that the company collects and sanitizes - a closed-loop packaging system aimed at zero food waste. Founded by former J.P. Morgan and Lumosity operator Julie Nguyen in 2015, the brand also runs a postpartum nourishment program for new mothers.
PlantBaby is a Hawaii-born, San Francisco-linked plant-based nutrition company founded by husband-and-wife team Alex and Lauren Abelin. Its flagship brand, Kiki Milk, is billed as the first organic, clean-label plant milk designed specifically for children - built from whole-food ingredients like oats, sprouted pumpkin and hemp seeds, and Aquamin marine calcium, with no gums, seed oils, refined sugars, or synthetic additives. Formulated with a pediatrician and nutritionist and triple-toxin tested for mold, heavy metals, and pesticides, PlantBaby sells direct-to-consumer and through retailers including Sprouts, Wegmans, Erewhon, Amazon, and Thrive Market. The company has raised roughly $7 million and reached a $20 million valuation on a mission to nourish, inform, and empower the next generation while backing regenerative agriculture.
Tezza Foods makes the first dairy-free yogurt that goes spoon-for-spoon with Greek yogurt. By culturing and straining organic American-grown soymilk, the Oakland-based company turns whole soybeans into a thick, high-protein yogurt with the protein and probiotics of dairy Greek yogurt - plus fiber and omega-3s - using about 90% less land, water and emissions than dairy. Founded in 2019 by MIT-trained microbiome scientist Nathaniel Chu and Josh Moser, Tezza is a public benefit corporation built on the idea that the world's most nutritious and sustainable protein should be the one we all eat.
Little Sesame is a Washington, D.C.-born food company that makes freshly spun, organic hummus from regeneratively farmed American chickpeas. What began in a 500-square-foot basement beneath a deli has grown into a two-part business: a fast-casual hummus restaurant and a national consumer-packaged-goods brand sold in more than 1,000 retail doors, including Whole Foods, Sprouts and Wegmans. The company pairs chef-driven flavor with a direct, traceable supply chain that supports regenerative organic farmers and treats good agriculture as a climate tool.
Bettani Farms is a Berkeley, California food company making protein-rich, dairy-free cheese that melts and stretches like the real thing. Its patented Caseed protein, derived from the seeds of regenerative crops, mimics dairy casein without the dairy, nuts, soy, or carbon footprint. Formerly Climax Foods, the company rebranded to Bettani Farms in October 2025, named former Califia Farms CFO Sandeep Patel as CEO, and closed an initial $6.5M of its Series A led by S2G Investments to scale mass-market cheeses like mozzarella and feta.
Sandeep Patel is the chairman and CEO of Bettani Farms, the Berkeley plant-based cheese company that rebranded from Climax Foods in October 2025 alongside a $6.5 million Series A round led by S2G Investments. A former CFO at Califia Farms, president and CFO at PopSockets, and managing director at Goldman Sachs and Barclays, Patel was a Bettani advisor since 2021 before taking the top job. He is betting the company's proprietary Caseed ingredient - a casein-mimicking protein pulled from regenerative seed crops, free of dairy, soy and nuts - can finally give vegan mozzarella the stretch and melt that pizza demands. His pitch: do for pizza what oat milk did for coffee.
Thistle is a plant-forward meal delivery service that ships chef-crafted, nutritionist-designed ready-to-eat meals, cold-pressed juices, and snacks to homes across much of the U.S. Founded in San Francisco in 2013 by Ashwin Cheriyan and Shiri Avnery, the company built its business on a simple wager: that the easiest way to fix both human health and the climate is to help people eat more plants.