DC company’s AI platform to develop recipes for foods and beverages, investors include Ted Leonsis

WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — Panos Kostopulos moved to the United States from Greece, in January 2022, to pursue his passion for biotechnology at Georgetown University in grad school.

He later won first place in a competition known as Bark Tank on Georgetown’s campus. The initiative, which helps young entrepreneurs, is backed by the founder and CEO of Monumental Sports and Entertainment, Ted Leonsis.

“I asked him to join the team as a co-founder,” said Kostopulos.

Kostopulos brought his company Proxy Foods to life with the help of Leonsis, and other investors.

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The company recently announced that the platform now has more than $2 million in seed funding.

“The $2.5 million that we raise (is) going to allow us to set up the infrastructure to scale more efficiently and be able to accommodate more requests,” Kostopulos said.

Kostopulos believes Proxy Foods is a solution to what can be a tedious process for companies that make food and beverages. The platform uses artificial intelligence to gather data about ingredients that will be cost-effective and healthy.

“In our case, we can say, I want to create a vegan plant-based ice cream with strawberry flavor with maximum 12 ingredients, I want to have zero trans fats, I want to be regulated in the USA, and I want the maximum cost to be ‘x’ amount. So, you give all these parameters, the parameters are good when you have applications because you limit the space,” he said.

He hopes the company will make the food supply more sustainable in the future.

“We don’t develop products ourselves and we’re not going to do that, it’s not in our goals,” he said. “We are now in contact with Georgetown University and some other place in D.C. to start a lab. But we also have lab locations in Athens, Greece.”

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