Category Visionaries Moody Soliman, CEO & Co-founder of Ryp Labs: $11 Million Raised to Eliminate Food Waste Through Natural Sticker Technology
Ryp Labs is tackling one of the world's most pressing problems: food waste. Every minute, enough food is wasted globally to feed over 1 million people for a day. If food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest producer of greenhouse gases behind the US and China. In this episode of Category Visionaries, we sat down with Moody Soliman, CEO and Co-founder of Ryp Labs, to learn how his ag-tech startup raised $11 million to develop a revolutionary sticker technology that extends produce shelf life using natural plant compounds.
Topics Discussed:
- Ryp Labs' five-year R&D journey to develop natural food preservation technology
- The pivot from targeting US/European markets to focusing on Central and South America
- How the company leveraged trade shows and competitions for organic marketing
- The decision to target distributors and packing houses over direct-to-consumer sales
- Scaling challenges and the critical "ship it" moment that validated their technology
- Future expansion plans into meat, seafood, dairy, and other food categories
GTM Lessons For B2B Founders:
- Follow market pull, not your assumptions: Ryp Labs initially targeted US and European markets, assuming these large, developed markets would be most receptive. However, they found no traction because established players had been "doing the same thing for 50 years" and were resistant to change. When they pivoted to Central and South America, they discovered customers who were highly motivated to export internationally and faced significant cold chain breaks. Moody explained, "We ended up completely shifting our go to market strategy to focus on those areas... they are highly motivated to ship their fruit internationally and to export it to the US or to Europe, because that's where they can get much higher prices." B2B founders should test multiple markets and follow where customers are genuinely desperate for solutions, not where they think the biggest opportunity exists.
- Use trade shows and competitions as unfair advantages: Ryp Labs leveraged their "fun and easy to comprehend" technology to win numerous competitions and secure organic media coverage. Moody noted, "We have almost unfair competitive advantage that it's such a fun technology and such an easy technology to comprehend. So we won a lot of those competitions and awards and that gives us free advertisement." For deep-tech startups with limited marketing budgets, industry competitions and trade shows can provide disproportionate exposure and credibility. B2B founders should identify events where their technology's unique aspects can create memorable impressions.
- Break the engineer's pencil at the right moment: Despite his team's protests that the product wasn't ready, Moody made the critical decision to ship to a major retailer in 2021. "All right guys, we've taken it as far as we can right now. We just got to put it out there and put it in a customer's hand... we'll learn if it doesn't work." This decision provided the validation and momentum needed to continue development. B2B founders in deep-tech must balance perfectionism with market feedback - sometimes shipping an imperfect product to the right customer is more valuable than months of additional development.
- Target the most centralized part of the supply chain: Ryp Labs initially considered selling directly to consumers but recognized the variability in handling would create inconsistent results and blame on their technology. Instead, they focused on distributors and packing houses where "all 1 million pack of strawberries is going from the farm into 2 degrees C" with predictable transportation conditions. This centralized approach allows them to "sell a million stickers to a distributor as opposed to going to 100,000 customers and selling them 10 stickers each." B2B founders should identify the most controlled and centralized points in their target industry's value chain.
- Design for regulatory constraints from day one: Coming from the medical device industry, Moody applied a crucial lesson: "You don't develop a technology and then go back and look at the regulatory process... You have to look at that on the front end, really understand what the requirements are going to be from a safety standpoint, and then develop the product to meet those requirements." This approach enabled Ryp Labs to achieve OMRI listing for organic produce and use only food-grade compounds already recognized as safe by the FDA. B2B founders should map regulatory requirements early and design their technology to meet these constraints rather than retrofitting compliance later.
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