About Us
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Dao Foods is an impact-oriented investment firm that invests in plant-based and alternative protein companies based in mainland China and focused on the Chinese market, as well as non-Chinese companies that have some strategic value to China. Our mandate is to support entrepreneurs that can play a role in activating the Chinese consumer, serving as their investor, their cheerleader and their value-added partner.
Founded by experienced impact investors and social entrepreneurs, in collaboration with New Crop Capital and the Good Food Institute, the Dao Foods international network is committed to identifying, assessing and supporting the most promising companies in China’s plant-based and alternative protein sector.
Aside from phonetic similarity of its English name Dao Foods, our Chinese name
道夫子 originates from a sentence in the Chinese masterpiece, The Analects of Confucius, "Confucius' way is loyalty and forgiveness only."
Loyalty and forgiveness are the vital content of Confucianism. Loyalty means to work for others with a full heart; forgiveness means to consider others in one's place.
Basically our name well illustrates the impact logic of Dao Foods, i.e., be loyal to the earth and environment where we live and be kind to the animals living on the planet.
Founding Team
TAO ZHANG
Co-Founder
Tao Zhang is a co-founder of Dao Foods International, Inc., a cross-border impact venture established to invest in eco-friendly plant-based and clean meat in China, which has been selected as one of 15 startups disrupting the global meat industry by The Grocer. Tao is also founder and managing director of Dao Ventures, a cross-border impact investment, advisory and accelerator group with co-headquartered offices in both China and the US that encompassed China Impact Fund (CIF), China’s first impact fund that specializes in supporting environmental SMEs. Prior to this, he was the Global COO of New Ventures, the center of environmental entrepreneurship at the World Resources Institute. In this role, he successfully led New Ventures in Washington, D.C. and its local centers (Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, and Mexico) to double investments into New Ventures companies to nearly $400 million within two years. Before he entered the impact investing space, Tao had accumulated extensive investment and operational experiences in the telecom and high-tech sector, where he served as assistant president for Asia-Pac at Convergys, an S&P 500 company, and was in charge of strategic venture investments in Asia at US leading carrier Verizon. Tao started his career as a European Union economic affairs correspondent with China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency and also advised Chinese government entities on international economic and commercial policies. Tao received a B.A. from Beijing Foreign Studies University, an MBA from Wake Forest University, and an MPA from Harvard University as a Mason Fellow.
ALBERT TSENG
Co-Founder
Albert is passionate about utilizing the power of business to address important social issues. Albert has over 20 years experience spanning from impact investment and social enterprise in international development to business development and management consulting in medical technology. Albert is founder of Moonspire Social Ventures which invests in social enterprises and funds that have business models that impact the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Albert also served as COO of a social enterprise in the global health area (BlueDot) that he helped through seed and Series A rounds and growth from 5 people to 50 people in a few short years. This startup was venture financed by Horizons Ventures in Hong Kong which had also funded Impossible Foods, JUST, Perfect Day, and Modern Meadow and it is through these companies that Albert learned of the negative environmental and health consequences of industrial animal agriculture and the potential of food companies to change the food system. Albert has an MPA from Harvard University, an MHSc. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto, and a BASc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo.
PARTNERS
Funding the future of food. New Crop Capital is a specialized private venture capital fund. We invest in talented, focused entrepreneurs whose products or services replace foods derived from conventional animal agriculture, which we view as an antiquated and inefficient food production system with serious vulnerabilities. The meat, egg, and dairy sectors represent a $700 billion global market that is ripe for innovation and large-scale disruption. Learn More: Unovis.vc
Imagine a food system where the most affordable and delicious products are also good for our bodies and the planet. The Good Food Institute (GFI) is a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has a team of scientists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and lobbyists, all of whom are laser focused on using markets and food technology to transform our food system away from factory farmed animal products and toward clean meat and plant-based alternatives. Learn More: http://www.gfi.org