About CULT Food Science
What are we building?
CULT Food Science is focused on two specific areas: building food brands that are good for the world and investing into the most innovative cellular agriculture companies on the planet.
These two areas have a unique synergy.
By building food brands that are good for people and good for the world, we are obsessive about finding the best ingredients. To find the best ingredients, we scour the world looking for the companies who are using cellular agriculture to create food inputs that are slaughter free, net zero emissions and nutritionally sound.
When we find those companies, we invest in them. When we invest in them, we not only own equity in them, we are developing a partnership around ingredient supply.
We then take those ingredients and we get to work on building entirely new categories of food that are both delicious and ethically sound.
These new categories of food get tested, refined and iterated on through our product incubation studio until we feel they are ready to make an impact.
As we begin to bring this entirely new type of food product into the world, we create a virtuous cycle. It’s good for the consumer, good for the planet, good for animals, good for our portfolio companies and good for us.
We think of this as a complete cellular agriculture ecosystem. Harm free. Slaughter free. Environmentally friendly. Ready to eat and ready for the future.
That is what we are building.
Meet the team
Our leadership team has a diverse array of knowledge and hands-on expertise as founders, consumer product developers, and operating public companies.
Interested in joining our growing team? Check out our career opportunities.
Lejjy is a self-taught entrepreneur and experienced company operator who made his start creating opportunities at the young age of 14, and he has been working, leading, and building businesses ever since.
Lejjy is the former co-founder and CEO of a YCombinator backed biotechnology company, and one of the first operating cellular agriculture companies in Canada. He has over 15 years of experience in both public and private enterprises executing strategy, technology, and product development for everything from financial institutions, manufacturing, public health, to world class universities. He also was a founding member of Cellular Agriculture Canada, currently serves on the board of New Harvest Canada, collaborator at the Institute of Cellular Agriculture at the University of Alberta, and is a creator at OpenCellAg.
Lejjy believes that cellular agriculture, and other advanced food technologies, will become a pillar of how we create food over the next decade. He believes food is a fundamental aspect of life, and that we are gazing upon a new horizon of food technologies that will allow us to tackle the systemic problems that we will face as a society.
Before joining CULT, Joshua was the co-founder and COO of a cellular agriculture pet food company. During his startup life, Joshua would take on any task that needed doing, from running operations, sales, marketing, hiring, shipping, finance and everything in between. He was even credited as an inventor on product and processing patents. His startup raised several rounds of venture funding and sold food products for dogs and cats across America.
At CULT, Joshua aims to seek out high-impact market innovations that will benefit the planet along with the people and animals who inhabit it.
He heads up the San Francisco-area office of CULT, and lives in the East Bay with his wife, daughter and three black cats.
Francis is a Chartered Professional Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Northern British Columbia. He has provided accounting and tax services to a wide range of business and personal clients. In addition, he currently serves as a Director and Chief Financial Officer for several public and private entities.
Science Advisors
We have brought together the brightest minds across synthetic biology, agriculture, biotechnology and cellular agriculture to guide our product development, validate our investments, and identify industry opportunities.
Dr. Anjum Mullani is an alumnus of Institut Pasteur, Paris’ Department of developmental and stem cell biology and is equipped with direct expertise studying and implementing solutions across research programs, animal biotechnology, molecular biology and cellular senescence. Dr. Mullani is focused on applying her diverse knowledge base to accelerate the advancement of cellular agriculture.
An alumni of Boston University's Department of Earth and Environment and Harvard University's Forest Lab, Ms. Shah is the food and farming analyst for the Breakthrough Institute, a global research center seeking technological solutions to environmental challenges.
An active start-up advisor and operations specialist with executive experience in alternative protein enterprises, Mr. Harris is focused on bridging the gap between scientific possibility and commercially viable products in the field of cellular agriculture.
Dr. Guru Ramanathan is a globally recognized expert in healthcare innovation and commercialization. He brings a wealth of experience from the clinical, consumer health, animal health and retail sectors. His most recent appoint was as Chief Innovation Officer for GNC, where he spent 15 years leading the development and launch of all products. He previously held senior executive positions at Nutricia (Danone) and Scotia Pharmaceuticals. Guru is very active in nutrition industry initiatives and specialises in Clinical Trials Management, Consumer Health Product Development, DSHEA Regulatory Compliance, Management of Technology in Healthcare and Change Management.
Dr Rolf Smeets is a passionate executive with a PhD degree in medical sciences from the Radboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and more than 24 years of experience in the international food industry. Next to leading R&D, he also has significant experience in regulatory, market access and corporate affairs.
Dr. Anthony Marotta, Ph.D. is a serial entrepreneur and a proven scientific and clinical leader whom also has a very strong business and operational acumen which is key in delivering shareholder value. As part of his professional tenure, Marotta has co-founded companies including Augurex Life Sciences Corp and Peqish Group and has been a business and clinical advisor for various companies including DueNorth BioDev, Network Immunology and SignalChem Life Sciences Corp. During Marotta's eleven-year tenure at Augurex he was responsible for the development of the 14-3-3ç biomarker programs, and the successful approvals and launching of the blood tests in Canada, Europe, Australia and United States. At Peqish, Marotta has played a critical role in assisting the business in building out its "food as medicine" strategy and differentiating itself from other organizations in the food space. Marotta has also been key in assisting the Peqish team to operationalise business processes and achieve double digit profitability on EBIDTA. Prior to Augurex and Peqish, Marotta served as the Director of Business Development for Stressgen Bioreagents where he tactically grew the product portfolio by 30% through developing strategic collaborations. He also played a key role in training lab, sales and technical staff and was involved in several aspects of the day-to-day operations of the whole business. Marotta holds several patents, has co-authored, and presented at various international conferences, and has strong relationships with clinicians worldwide. Marotta completed his Ph.D. in Experimental Medicine at the University of British Columbia.
Dr. Shelke is a Certified Food Scientist and a Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists. She teaches food safety regulations at Johns Hopkins University and is Founder/Principal at Corvus Blue LLC, a food research firm that expedites development and commercialization of new food products and technologies with science and sensibility. Her expertise includes regulatory compliance, competitive intelligence and risk management in the food and nutrition sector.
Lenore held a Canada Research Chair (in food security), is now Director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley, where cellular agriculture is one of three research areas. Lenore mentors companies through Creative Destruction Labs - Rockies and Bioenterprise, and acts in an advisory role for a variety of agritech startups. Dr.Newman was a member of the BC Premier's Task Force on food security and continues to advise government on policy. With multiple books and publications to her name, Lenore is a key leader in the North American food space.
Dr. Dodd graduated from the veterinary science program at Massey University in New Zealand in 2016, after which she completed MSc and PhD degrees at the University of Guelph in Canada. In 2021, Dr. Dodd passed her certifying exam and was recognized as a diplomate of the European College of Veterinary and Comparative Nutrition by the European Board of Veterinary Specialists®. Dr. Dodd's research specializes in plant-based nutrition for companion animals and in clinical practice she predominantly formulates specialized diets for cats and dogs with complicated health conditions. In addition to her nutrition specialty, Dr. Dodd is also a practicing veterinarian and she enjoys working with farmed animal sanctuaries and dog and cat rescues.
Evan is Director of Arrell Food Institute and a professor of Geography at the University of Guelph. There, Evan works to bring large and diverse teams together to develop strategies that balance our need to produce and distribute accessible, healthy, and nutritious food while stewarding the ecosystems on which we all depend for life. As a researcher, Evan is a co-author on over 100 academic papers and book chapters, played a leadership role on teams that have raised over $100M in research funding, and mentored around 50 graduate students. He is one of Canada’s most cited social scientists working on food and sustainability and between 2010-2020 was a Canada Research Chair.
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