Funding

Panos Kostopoulos Co-Founded Proxy Foods AI Scores $6M in Seed Funding

Aug 6, 2026 | By Devin Jacobs

SUMMARY

Proxy Foods AI raised $6 million in Seed funding.
Proxy Foods AI develops an AI-powered food R&D platform.
The funding will strengthen its AI platform.

Proxy Foods AI, a Washington, DC-based provider of a food and beverage R&D platform, has raised $6 million in a Seed funding round led by Ted Leonsis.

The round also saw participation from Robert G. Hisaoka and SWaN & Legend Venture Partners (Anthony Nader and Fredrick Schaufeld).

The company plans to use this capital to strengthen its AI-powered R&D platform for food and beverage companies.

Funding Snapshot

Metric	Details
Fundraise Amount	$6 million
Valuation	Undisclosed
Company	Proxy Foods AI
Sector	FoodTech / AI / R&D
Headquarters	Washington, DC, US
Funding Stage	Seed
Lead Investor	Ted Leonsis

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About Proxy Foods AI

Founded in 2022 by Panos Kostopoulos, Proxy Foods AI develops an AI-powered R&D platform for food and beverage product development and formulation. The platform helps CPG companies, ingredient businesses and restaurant brands move from product concepts to commercialization more quickly.

The company combines institutional food science knowledge with AI to analyze existing R&D information, predict formulation performance and support product development before physical laboratory trials.

Core offerings include:

AI-powered food formulation
Product optimization
R&D knowledge management
Formulation performance prediction
Food product development

Core Technologies / Products / Services

Capability/Product	Application/Use Case
AI R&D Platform	Supports food and beverage product development
Formulation Prediction	Predicts product performance before physical trials
Knowledge Integration	Converts fragmented R&D knowledge into usable insights
Product Optimization	Helps improve taste, nutrition and formulation
Expert Guided Bayesian Optimization	Optimizes formulations using AI and expert input

Leadership Comments

"When I first met Panos, it was clear he was building a platform that could revolutionize our global food system, and I was eager to support his vision," said Ted Leonsis, Co-Founder and Lead Board Director of Proxy Foods AI. "Proxy Foods AI is applying innovative technology to one of the world’s largest and most essential industries in a way that is practical, measurable and built for scale.

“Leading food and beverage companies leverage our platform to create a new R&D environment, where teams are empowered by technology to fully use their creative capacity, quickly reimagine legacy products, open up new categories, and deliver better taste, nutrition, and affordability," said Panos Kostopoulos, CEO of Proxy Foods AI.