Nathan Cooper

Co-Founder, Wise Apple

Chicago

Nate is the co-founder and President of Wise Apple, a company focused on changing the way kids eat, starting with a tech-enabled solution for school lunch.

Prior to founding Wise Apple, Nate was a founding partner of L3Hospitality group; the sole franchisee of LYFE Kitchen-which owns and operates 5 LYFE Kitchen restaurants in the Chicago area. Nate began his career as the first employee of LYFE Kitchen, growing it from a concept to a national chain with 20 locations and $40M+ in sales.

Nate serves as an investor and advisor to a variety of Food & Beverage and CPG companies in the Chicagoland area. Through his perspective of ‘sitting on both sides of the table’ Nate has extensive experience in fundraising, team building, and new venture development.

Nate is a graduate of the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University and received his MBA from the Kellogg School of management where he was awarded a Kellogg Scholarship, and named a Zell Fellow, a prestigious global fellowship for entrepreneurs pursuing their MBA.

In his free time, Nate is a passionate endurance athlete and has completed an Ironman triathlon and nearly a dozen marathons. He has been a featured speaker on food & entrepreneurship at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, Pritzker School of Law, Google Chicago, and Roosevelt University. Nate lives in Chicago and serves as a partner at Social Venture Partners Chicago and the associate boards of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum & the Lurie Children’s Foundation for Hearing and Speech Rehabilitation.