Food Venture Financing 101

Don Buder is a strategic legal advisor and corporate counsel to food and beverage, food tech, and ag tech innovators, entrepreneurs, and investors.

For over three decades Don has tried to provide every client with the three basic services: to find cost-effective solutions to legal problems; to offer advice that is direct and practical; and to keep the parties involved in any negotiation focused on their common business objectives. He believes that a lawyer is effective only if he can protect his clients’ interests without frustrating their business judgment.

As part of the service he provides, Don regularly participates in management team and strategic planning meetings with his clients. He views his role as that of both a business partner and a legal advisor, helping his clients to grow their business ventures over the long-term.

Don has a broad network of business service providers and professionals with whom he regularly consults to provide coordinated advice to his clients. This informal “keiretsu” of affiliated service providers (which include investment bankers, accountants, management consultants, branding firms, and commercial bankers among others) allows Don to help his clients put together a group of strategic advisors for their businesses. They work together closely to achieve the common goals of maximizing opportunity and minimizing risk for his clients.

Don is a founder and the board chair of Naturally Bay Area Inc., a nonprofit 501(c)(6) organization which is the first regional affiliate of Naturally Boulder. He was a founding faculty member and member of the Advisory Board of the Food Business School at the Culinary Institute of America (Napa Valley).

He is currently vice chair of the board of directors of KCETLink TV, the public television station in Los Angeles, and a member of the board of directors of the American Technion Society - Silicon Valley and San Francisco Chapters.

Don serves as a community member of OSC2, a national organization of sustainable business leaders, and as a mentor to cohort companies in Terra, a foodtech and agtech accelerator in San Francisco sponsored by Rabobank and Rocketspace.

Don’s clients are based in all of the major food and tech innovation hubs in the United States, including the San Francisco Bay Area; Boulder, Colorado; Brooklyn, New York; Austin, Texas; Chicago; and Los Angeles, as well as in Europe and Asia.

Jisoo Kim is an associate at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP who represents clients in business transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, commercial financial services transactions, and strategic partnerships. She has broad transactional experience across industries with a concentrated focus on privately-held companies in the technology and food and beverage sectors. Jisoo also advises early stage and emerging growth companies and their investors with respect to entity formation, venture financings, and other general corporate matters.