Ukko: On a Mission to Change the Future of Food and Health

Ukko’s novel approach uses a proprietary AI-powered platform that precisely engineers food proteins to eliminate their allergenicity, while keeping their “good qualities” – biochemical and nutritional characteristics.

For its initial product pipeline, on the food side Ukko is working on improved gluten proteins that are especially designed for people with celiac and other gluten sensitivities, which will allow bakers, food companies, and home cooks to make delicious bread, pizza, pasta, and baked goods that everyone can eat. On the therapeutic side, Ukko is using its protein design platform to develop a new and promising investigational drug (therapeutic) for peanut allergy. Ukko’s future pipeline includes plans to address all protein based allergies (food, environmental, and animal allergies).

Ukko was co-founded in Palo Alto, California in 2017 by a strong business and scientific team - Anat Binur, PhD and Yanay Ofran, PhD, a recognized and leading computational biophysicist and antibody researcher - and has raised close to $50M from top-tier US Venture Capital funds. Ukko’s team is made up of 50 employees with plans to significantly grow over the next year. Most of whom work from the company’s offices and two new world class labs in Rehovot, Israel. The team consists of top notch scientists with expertise in a range of fields, including molecular biology, biochemistry, immunology and computational biology. The company’s culture reflects its tech edginess - the intersection of foodtech, synthetic biology, AI etc.- and has a mission driven, fun, very vibrant vibe. The Israeli team is planned to significantly expand in the coming year to support Ukko’s upcoming clinical trials and product development.

Since Ukko employees are defined as essential workers, their work was not severely disrupted by Covid-19. They were able to adopt a hybrid routine: physically work in their labs even during lockdowns, and also work from home when needed.

Meet Eitan Rabinovitch and Tal Azriel

Eitan Rabinovitch, who is 34 and lives in Nes Ziona with his wife and two children, has a PhD in Biotechnology Engineering from Ben-Gurion University. He has worked for Ukko since 2020 as a downstream process engineer and today he is the Head of Ukko’s Gluten Baking Lab. “I was looking for a job with a sense of mission and here I feel that I’m really contributing. I am proud of what we do. If we succeed, we can save many lives and that’s a really good feeling,” he says. Eitan describes his work hours as sane with flexibility - when needed he stays late to finish an experiment. “It’s a dynamic company and everybody is very dedicated. Our managers trust us to get our work done and beyond when needed. We all work together; everyone is involved in each project.”

In addition to the exciting work itself, Eitan is equally enthusiastic about the social aspects of being part of Ukko. “There is a strong family atmosphere and a sense of togetherness (or as we like to call it: ‘Ukkoness’). There are no ‘Sunday blues’ here – we look forward to coming to work to meet friends and to talk about our weekends.”

Tal Azriel, who is 27 and lives in Tel Aviv, agrees with Eitan: “It’s fun to come to work. Even though I can work from home if I want, I prefer to come to the office. I carpool every day with colleagues and the whole company eats lunch together. We also celebrate birthdays, have weekly Happy Hours, and organize fun and interesting trips and offsites.”

Tal joined Ukko four years ago as a business student at Reichman University and she worked her way up to her current position as the company’s Project Management Officer. “When I first joined Ukko I thought it would be just like any other student position - but soon enough I realized that this company is different. There are so many opportunities to contribute; People are seen, challenged, and feel supported every day - so that each employee can have an effect on what the company will look like in the future ,” she notes, adding that “it is a real start-up experience.” In particular, she enjoys working with leading global experts, such as clinical experts and key industry advisors (e.g. Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo who works closely with the company), and also appreciates the fact that there are so many women in the company, especially in top positions.

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