A story of ingenuity and passion
Vanilla Vida was founded
Three generations, three unique backgrounds - all came together to be the first in the world to develop a successful commercial natural vanilla supply chain that’s stable and sustainable.
Established our agricultural R&D center
We built the most advanced R&D facility for vanilla research worldwide, focused on leveraging technology to optimize yields.
First POC
We accomplished an industrial-scale pilot with leading F&F companies and were recognized as the most vanillin-concentrated product on the market.
Round A
We raised $11.5 million in our Series A round, backed by strategic investors, including leading food companies, and Venture Capital funds specializing in agri-foodtech investments. By 2023, we will raise approx $20M in total capital.
Launched our data-driven curing facility
A novel concept with automated production processes that increases operational efficiency while reducing production costs. Our tech fulfills each bean's full aroma potential through image processing on the single-bean level.
Won the FIE innovation challenge
The FIE Global Startup Innovation Challenge highlights companies breaking new ground in the food industry. At FIE 2022, we won the award for “The Most Innovative Processing Technology”.
Q1 2020
Q2 2020
Q3 2021
Q1 2022
Q2 2022
Q4 2022
Trusted by
Our secret compound
Founders
Oren Zilberman
CEO & Co-founder
Oren’s experience as an investment specialist, along with his vast business planning, management, and leadership experience were pivotal to his success in the start-up industry. Coming from a family of farmers, agricultural innovation is dear to his heart.
As the CEO, he uses his business savvy and management expertise to keep the company moving forward, building the team, securing investments, developing globally and transitioning from R&D to production scalability.
Shlomy Kadosh
VP Agriculture & Co-founder
The company’s first entrepreneur, Shlomy is an agritech innovator and international agriculture expert. He has over 40 years of hands-on experience in building large-scale projects worldwide, and managing hundreds of employees and accumulated budgets.
His professional expertise ranges from greenhouse planning and plant production to farm establishment, plantings, and crop marketing. Over the years, he has employed his end-to-end management capabilities across many disciplines, positively impacting the lifecycle of large-scale farming projects.
As the company’s VP Agriculture, Shlomy leads the agronomists and agricultural business development teams to achieve the most advanced growing protocols in the world, and build strategic collaborations with farmers around the world.
Dr. Raz Krizevski
CTO & Co-founder, PHD
Raz is a highly motivated and skilled researcher and entrepreneur, who loves tackling the problems of technology, science, and management in new ways.
With an MSc in agronomy and a PhD in functional genomics and biotechnology, he has spent a lot of time and energy studying plant-specialized metabolites and aroma compound formation. He also has an MBA in bio-management.
As the CTO and co-founder of Vanilla Vida, his daily focus is on creating new solutions to common - and uncommon - technical challenges that arise from working in the food-tech and ag-tech industries. He currently leads the laboratory team, analytics department and works closely with the operations team to achieve the business’ scale-up goals successfully.
Board of Directors
Yoni Glickman
Managing Director, PeakBridge
Jonathan Berger
CEO, "The Kitchen"
FoodTech Hub**
This is modal position - Jonathan has been leading "The Kitchen",the first Israeli FoodTech incubator, since its inception in 2014.
Jonathan has been leading "The Kitchen", the first Israeli FoodTech incubator, since its inception in 2014.
The Kitchen, owned by the Strauss Group and supported by the State of Israel, has been investing in early-stage Israeli FoodTech start-ups aiming to support better industry, better food, better world . Jonathan has a unique combination of experience in hi-tech and food businesses, serving in leadership positions in both, and he is a director at Copia-Agro, an AgTech fund.
Alessandro Boccardo
Investment Director,
Taseo Capital
Strategic, Agri & Food Investments Director, Teseo Capital
Alessandro has spent the majority of his career working with Agri, FoodTech and Food production with some of the biggest names in the industry in several geographies (Western and Eastern Europe, South America, Africa and Australia)
He served as the Land Acquisition & Agricultural Projects Principal at Fedesa, General Manager at Agri Australis (Ferrero Group), and was the Hazelnut Business Development Manager at Ferrero.
Advisory Board
Howard-Yana Shapiro, Phd
Principal, Double Helix Consulting
Howard has been involved with sustainable agricultural and agroforestry systems, plant breeding, molecular biology and genetics for over 50 years. He has worked with indigenous communities, NGO’s, IGO’s governmental agencies and the private sector around the world.
A Senior Fellow of the College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences, Department of Plant Science at the University of California, Davis, Howard’s academic career spans 45 years. He holds a number of esteemed titles in the agricultural and business field, including Distinguished Senior Fellow, CIFOR-ICRAF, Bogor and Nairobi, and Venture Partner of TO VC. He also served as a the Co-Chairperson for the 1st World Congress of Agroforestry.
Adi Chen Levi
Business CEO,
Kibbutz Maagan Michael
Adi is the Business Manager of Kibbutz Maagan Michael, a national leader in industry, agriculture, and solar energy.
As a Chair of business corporations including Plasson Industries Ltd, Adi has a strong financial and strategic orientation with the ability to work in dynamic and rapidly changing environments.
Adi is people-oriented and skilled at working with global multifunctional teams to implement operational improvement while taking risked-based controls and value-added measurements.
Meir Assulin
Owner, Eligam Agriculture
Our team
Shahar Fellner
Shahar Fellner CFO
Gali Fried
VP Business Development & Marketing
Johnatan Mekler
VP Operations
Hila Balak
People & Culture
Tsafrir Sasson
VP of Growth
Dr. Raviv Harris, PhD.
Head of Data & Analytics
Yoram Raz
Lab Director
Shay Levy
Chief Agronomist
Yana Kaplunsky
Head of Sensory & Costumer Succses Manager
Michael Schneider
Production Manager
Roy Oz
Agronomist
Reut Noach
People Experience Manager
Ben Or Laichtman
Production Team Member
Amit Faran
Innovation Researcher
Inbal Arama
Reaserch Asistent
Tal Avraham
Analytical Chemist
Ziv Bella
R&D Lab Assistant
Dan Zeltzer
Production Team Member
Amit Grinwlad
Production Team Member