Hispanic Heritage Month – Maricel Saenz
“Coffee without the beans is a concept bound to get any java drinker’s attention. Maricel Saenz, founder and CEO of Compound Foods calls herself a biotech entrepreneur. She’s brought together a team to leverage food science, fermentation and synthetic biology to recreate coffee without the beans, moving coffee production to the lab. Maricel knows that to make good coffee you need to hire coffee lovers in the lab as well as throughout the entire team. And what happens to the coffee farmers? She wants to help them move into more robust crops that can handle climate change. It’s her passion and at Ulu, we were impressed.” – Ulu Ventures
Maricel Saenz Bio
Maricel Saenz is the founder and CEO of Compound Foods, a food-tech startup recreating coffee without coffee beans. Maricel and Compound aim to create a sustainable coffee that reduces the negative environmental impact on the planet and ensures we have coffee for the foreseeable future. Maricel is a Costa Rica native, passionate about sustainability and coffee. She has a Bachelor of Commerce from The University of British Columbia and attended Singularity University’s Global Solutions Program in 2017.
Maricel has a background in finance and previously co-founded Nextbiotics, a synthetic biology startup addressing antibiotic resistance. She worked in international development in South Africa, with local entrepreneurs, and in Cambodia with Hellen Keller International to empower women. She worked with Monitor Deloitte in corporate strategy and innovation consultancies.
