Food + Ag Scaling Series

UC Davis Venture Catalyst and Morrison Foerster will host a five-part Food + Ag Scaling Series.

Food + Ag founders are operating in a fundamentally different environment. Capital is more selective, investors are demanding clearer paths to commercialization and profitability, regulatory policy is changing quickly, and corporate partnerships are increasingly important to achieving scale.

Designed for entrepreneurs, this series will bring together leading Morrison Foerster lawyers, investors, operators, and industry executives for practical conversations around five of the most critical issues companies face as they move from innovation to commercialization and scale.

Drawing on real-world experience across the Food + Ag ecosystem, each session will provide practical insights and perspectives to help companies navigate the legal, regulatory, financing, intellectual property, and commercial considerations that can shape their path to growth.

Session Topics

Session 1: Early-Stage Financing: Setting the Stage for Future Success| November 3, 2026

Speakers: Janine Elliott, UC Davis Venture Catalyst; Alfredo “Fredo” Silva, Partner, Morrison Foerster

Early-stage financing requires founders to balance urgent needs for capital with the desire to protect their control and ownership. This session will explore what Food + Ag founders need to demonstrate to attract capital, how to prepare for financing, and how to negotiate terms with less-than-ideal leverage.

Topics include:

• What investors are actually funding in Food + Ag in 2026
• What angel, Series Seed, and Series A investors expect
• Developing a fundraising strategy & preparing for diligence
• Convertibles vs. priced rounds
• Hidden dangers of pre-seed financings and focus points for preferred rounds
• When strategic capital helps—and when it complicates the cap table

Register for Session 1

Session 2: Regulatory Strategy as a Growth Strategy: Getting to Market and Staying There| November 11, 2026

Speakers: Ali Wing, CEO, Oobli; Brian Sylvester, Partner, Morrison Foerster

For Food + Ag companies, regulatory strategy can determine commercialization timelines, customer adoption, financing, and strategic partnerships. Brian and Ali will explore how founders can anticipate regulatory hurdles, build regulatory milestones into their growth plans, and turn regulatory readiness into a competitive advantage.

Topics include:

• The evolving GRAS landscape and implications for novel ingredients
• Navigating FDA, USDA, and increasingly important state requirements
• MAHA, ultra-processed foods, and scrutiny of ingredients and claims
• Building regulatory milestones into fundraising and commercialization
• What investors, customers, and strategic partners expect from regulatory diligence

Register for Session 2

Session 3: Protecting What Makes You Valuable: Building an IP Strategy That Supports Financing, Partnerships, & Exit | November 18, 2026

Speakers: Shayna Harris, Co-founder & Managing Partner, Supply Change Capital; Anita Choi, Partner, Morrison Foerster

Creating an IP strategy is about protecting the innovations that create enterprise value. Anita and Shayna will discuss how founders should align IP and business strategy and how investors evaluate defensibility when deciding where to put capital.

Topics include:

• Understanding the different forms of IP and when each is appropriate
• Building an IP portfolio around the company’s true competitive advantage
• Protecting formulations, ingredients, genetics, processes, data, and AI-enabled innovation
• Freedom to operate and avoiding expensive surprises as the business scales
• Protecting IP created with employees, universities, and collaborators
• Managing know-how when working with manufacturers and strategic partners
• Design-around risk and competitive positioning
• What investors and potential acquirers look for during IP diligence

Register for Session 3

Session 4: Partnering Without Giving Away the Company: Commercial Agreements That Accelerate Scale | December 2, 2026

Speakers: Liza Larson, Director, External Innovation at Rich Products Corporation; Matt Ferry, Partner, Morrison Foerster

For many Food + Ag startups, the fastest path to scale runs through established manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, retailers, and strategic partners. Matt and Liza will provide perspectives from both sides of the negotiating table: How startups can structure relationships that accelerate commercialization while protecting long-term value, and what strategics actually need to see before committing to a meaningful partnership.

Topics include:

• Joint development and co-development agreements
• Manufacturing, tolling, supply, and distribution agreements
• Licensing technology without giving away future value
• Exclusivity, minimum commitments, and rights of first refusal
• Protecting IP, data, and know-how in corporate collaborations
• Avoiding provisions that create problems in the next financing or acquisition

Register for Session 4

Session 5: State of Food + Ag 2026: Where Capital, Corporates, & the Next Wave of Growth Are Heading | December 9, 2026

Speakers: Lauren Abda, Founder and CEO of Branchfood and Co-founder of Branch Venture Group; Mitchell Presser, Partner and Co-chair, Food + Agriculture, Morrison Foerster

The series concludes with a candid conversation about what comes next, bringing together investor and operator perspectives to examine where investors are placing bets, what strategic buyers are looking for, which business models are breaking through, and what will separate the companies that scale from those that don’t.

Topics include:

• Where investors are still placing meaningful bets
• What happened to the FoodTech and AgTech investment thesis and what comes next
• What PE and strategic buyers are looking for in scaled businesses
• Health, nutrition, GLP-1s, and changing consumer priorities
• What founders need to build today to create an attractive financing or exit opportunity tomorrow
• Five predictions for Food + Ag in 2027

Register for Session 5