Summary
Buck Jordan (James Buckly Jordan) is a co-founder of Miso Robotics and has served as the company’s President and Chairman of the Board. A former U.S. Army captain turned venture capitalist and entrepreneur, he helped originate Miso with restaurant operator John Miller and recruit its Caltech engineering team, then became a leading public voice for Flippy and Miso’s equity-crowdfunding strategy. He is also founder and CEO of Vebu Labs, a corporate venture studio focused on food robotics and automation.
Career
Jordan earned a B.A. in political science from Indiana University and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He served as a captain in the U.S. Army, where exposure to autonomous technology shaped his later focus on robotics. After military service, he built a career as an early-stage investor and company builder in Southern California.
In 2016, Jordan co-founded Miso Robotics with John Miller and a Caltech-connected technical team (David Zito, Ryan Sinnet, and Robert Anderson), aiming to bring AI and robotics into commercial kitchens. He has described Flippy’s early days at CaliBurger as generating a “cult following,” with visitors coming daily to watch the robot cook. Beyond co-founding, Jordan has served as a director (including from 2017 through March 2019) and later as acting President and Chairman of the Board, remaining a central figure in Miso’s fundraising narrative—especially its large Regulation A+ and crowdfunding rounds that attracted tens of thousands of retail investors.
In parallel, Jordan founded Wavemaker Labs (later rebranded or associated with Vebu Labs), a corporate innovation venture studio that incubates food and robotics startups in partnership with large companies. Under his leadership the studio has been linked to launches including Future Acres (agricultural robotics), Graze (autonomous commercial lawn mowing), Bobacino (automated boba tea), Piestro (automated pizza), and Nommi (automated bowl meals). He has also been a Partner at Wavemaker Partners, a cross-border venture firm dual-headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, and founded Canyon Creek Capital as managing partner in 2018.
Jordan has served on the board of Serve Robotics since October 2021. Public profiles describe him as a pilot and ping-pong enthusiast, and a father.
Source Notes
This profile draws on Buck Jordan’s LinkedIn profile, Equilar executive biography materials (including his Serve Robotics board bio), Digital Evolution Institute and Food On Demand profiles, and prior Business Insider coverage of Miso’s crowdfunding and White Castle expansion in which Jordan was interviewed as co-founder and president. Exact military service dates are not detailed in public sources beyond his U.S. Army captaincy and stated inspiration from autonomous Army technology.