Brian FrankFoodTech Investor & Advisor and General Partner, FTW Ventures

Brian Frank is a a successful entrepreneur and product leader, now serving as the General Partner of Food for Thought Worldwide (FTW) Ventures.

Brian made his name in the consumer mobile sector – with close to 20 years of Product experience building innovative solutions that touched the lives of millions, if not billions, of consumers worldwide – the Palm Treo smart phone, Photoshop Mobile and Twitter mobile.

In the last 3 years, Brian has led companies through major investment rounds and several companies to successful acquisitions – he served as the Chief Product Officer for Posterous (acquired by Twitter), the VP of Product & Marketing for Timeful (raised Series A from Khosla Ventures, acquired by Google) and as an Advisor to Teforia (raised Seed from Upfront Ventures).

Brian also spent 3 years in the food industry – he started as a Wine Specialist for the Francis Ford Coppola Restaurant Group and then as an independent consultant for the wine & beverage industry.

He currently serves as the EIR for Food at indie.bio, where he mentored 2 companies in the previous cohort to secure significant Seed rounds (Gelzen & Memphis Meats), and spends time as a Mentor for Lemnos Labs (hardware), Food-X (food) and 500Startups (software and SaaS).

Brian works as an Advisor to Teforia (revolutionizing the age-old tea experience) and is an Investor in Nomiku (consumer sous vide cooking) and Proper Foods (healthy, grab-and-go food retailer).  He also spends some of his free time as an informal mentor and advisor to Philz Coffee, 6Sensor Labs, Drop Kitchen, Memphis Meats and many other FoodTech companies.

He has spoken about the FoodTech sector at the Nutrition Capital Network investor series and the OpenTable/National Restaurant Association innovation summit, amongst other events. He has identified as a leading investor in the space in interviews by NPR, Fast Company and in several other publications & podcasts. He’s has also produced the Future of Food Pavilion at SXSW 2016 and organized the Startup Cookoff Pitch Competition at the Smart Kitchen Summit. He’s also assisting in production of the FoodLovesTech conference.