VENTURE CAPITALIST SORAYA Darabi was on the way to San Francisco International Airport in 2018 when she got a phone call that stopped her in her tracks. The caller was Phil Wong, co-founder of Misfit Foods, which Darabi's VC firm, TMV, had invested in earlier that year. Sales of the company's cold-pressed juices weren't hitting their targets. He'd decided it was time for a change.
"I knew it wasn't going to be a quick conversation, so I dropped my bag, sat down on a bench in Union Square, and talked to Phil for two hours," Darabi says.
Wong's idea was to make meat products partially from vegetables. It would be a hard pivot for the company, which had raised a $1 million seed round on the concept of making juices from leftover produce that farmers couldn't sell. But Darabi was on board. (She also made her flight that day, just barely.) Over the next few months, she and her TMV co-founder, Marina Hadjipateras, guided Misfit Foods through the transition. The company doubled its revenue the next year, and today sells its combination veggie-and-meat items in Whole Foods and through online retailers like Fresh Direct.
