Dustin Baker and Maya French founded Koia, the protein-packed, plant-based beverage that uses natural ingredients to deliver delicious nutrition, in late 2013in 2016. Koia is available in more than 8,000 stores nationwide in both natural and conventional grocery chains. .

Baker, inspired by the health problems he saw in his medical sales career, wanted to find a way to help Maya after learning she was lactose intolerant. By creating an innovative dairy-free and soy-free option with a balance of high protein and low sugar, the pair saw Koia as an opportunity to improve Maya’s health but also the health of others.

Koia quickly scaled to become the most productive refrigerated protein brands in the natural channel within 18 months of inception and landed a rare national deal with Whole Foods Market.

Dave Peters founded and scaled Farmwise LLC, a pioneering natural products company that invented healthier versions of America’s favorite foods including Veggie Fries®, Veggie Tots®, Veggie Rings® and Veggie Skins® and led a successful exit to B&G Foods, Inc. in February 2020.

Prior to Farmwise, Dave held senior leadership roles at Gillette/Proctor & Gamble, General Mills, Diageo, Chupa Chups S.A., Natural Foods companies (Tribe Mediterranean Foods) and start-up ventures (MooBella Ice Cream).

Dave is currently the CEO of Element Snacks Inc. and is pioneering innovation in the “Feel Good Snacking” sector.

Veronica (Bosgraaf) Lehman founded Pure Organic, a simple ingredient  nutrition bar company in 2006, inspired by her 6-year-old vegetarian daughter.   Lehman partnered with investors in 2008 and grew the company to 25M in sales, expanding into fruit snacks and bagged snacks over the next 8 years.

In 2014 Veronica wrote Pure Food, a seasonally based vegetarian cookbook which was picked up and published by Random House.

In 2016 Pure Organic sold to Kellogg under the Kashi family of brands, and Veronica worked within Kashi for 3 years to manage the transition.