Don't drop the soda,

Drop the sugar.

Dulzein Bio Plant-produced protein sweetener

Get in touch How it works
Sugar cubes falling next to a bottle and a glass of soda
Important fact

The world wants less sugar

200M 830M people living with diabetes
“The number of people living with diabetes rose from 200 million in 1990 to 830 million in 2022.”
<10%of daily energy from free sugars

WHO strongly recommends that adults and children keep free sugars below 10% of total energy intake.

Source: WHO sugars guideline, 2015

Sugar reduction without losing the product experience.

An opportunity: using plants as biofactories for nutritional ingredients.

Points of difference

Current alternatives are not sufficient

Synthetic sweeteners

  • Very high intensity
  • Low industry cost

Chemical aftertaste and application limits

Plant-derived sweeteners

  • Perceived plant origin
  • High sweetening power

Bitter notes; often need masking agents

Our pick

Sweet proteins

  • Extreme intensity
  • Clean, sugar-like taste

Needs a new, scalable production route

Sources: IntechOpen, Chemistry of Food Sweeteners; Dimensions of Dental Hygiene, Sweetness Without Sugar.

Our sweet star: brazzein

Sweet like sugar. Made of protein.

2,000×

Up to 2,000 times sweeter than sucrose (500× against a 10% sugar solution).Source: Ming & Hellekant, FEBS Letters, 1994

6.5 kDa

Only 54 amino acids: one of the smallest sweet proteins.Source: Ming & Hellekant, 1994

98 °C

Still tasted very sweet after 2 hours at 98 °C, in taste tests from pH 2 to 8.Source: US Patent 5,346,998

The question is not whether it works. The question is how to produce it competitively.

New biotechnology paradigm

Lactuca sativa: a lettuce biofactory

  1. Design

    Plant-optimized brazzein gene and expression cassette.

  2. Grow

    Transient expression in hydroponic lettuce through agroinfiltration.

  3. Purify

    A heat step that leverages brazzein's thermostability, confirmed by ELISA and Western blot.

Adapted to hydroponic systems A familiar food crop
Opportunity

Brazzein is here. The market is already paying for it

Market prices

US$316–368/kg

Public B2B listing. Higher-purity offers reach about US$1,500/kg.

Reference price, not a quote.

Cost benchmark

US$57–80/kg

Modeled cost of fungal fermentation (T. reesei, 1.3 g/L in bioreactor).

Reference range.

B2B opportunity

The market already has a price. Our plant route aims to offer a clean ingredient, B2B, to beverage and consumer packaged goods leaders urged to cut sugar.

10.3%CAGR, global sweet proteins market, 2026–2033
Source: Coherent Market Insights

The current landscape

Microbial production

OobliSweegenConagenPentaSweetPerfect DayKingdomwayBestzymeFarmtoryMagellanLevprot BioscienceSudhin Biopharma

Plant production

GreenLabNambawan

Commercial supply and development stages vary across companies.

Our ambition

Mass access comes next

Brazzein is already on the market. Our goal is to make it accessible to everyone.

Lower cost

of sweetness

Scale

as demand grows

Brazzein accessible

to the mass market

Business modelB2B

Roadmap

How would we arrive at the product?

  1. 2026
    Design

    Plant + gene design

    Genesis
    Program
    Support
  2. 2027
    Prove it works

    Brazzein detected & tasted

    Pre-seed
    < US$150K
  3. 2028
    Prove it pays

    Cost model + IP clear

    Seed
    US$0.5–1M
    VC ticket range
  4. 2030
    Scale it

    Pilot + first B2B deal

    Pilot round
    To be quoted
    No verified source yet

First commercial agreement by 2030, with a plant-made sweet protein at a fair price.

Reference ranges, not a budget. Sources: Agencia I+D+i Startup TRL 3-4 (up to US$150K); The Yield Lab Latam (US$100K–1M); Venturance (US$450K–3M). Pilot-scale cost: no verified source yet.

Team

The people behind Dulzein

  • Constanza Agostina Guimaraez

    CEO
    • Chemical Engineer
    • Plant micropropagation in bioreactors
    • Business and Product

  • Vanesa Beretta

    CSO
    • Agricultural Engineer & Ph.D. in Biological Sciences
    • Hydroponic entrepreneur
    • MBA candidate

  • Paula Otero Signorelli

    CTO
    • B.S. in Biotechnology
    • Diploma in Biobusiness

  • Francisco Marcó Berberian

    COO
    • B.S. in Biology
    • Microbiology & Applied Biotechnology
    • Bioprocess R&D

We envision a sustainable and optimized production of widely used ingredients.

Team member presenting a research poster
Plant cultures growing in bioreactors on lab shelves
Hydroponic greenhouse with leafy crops
Hydroponic lettuce growing in channels
Lab work at a bench
Culture flasks under grow lights
Sterile work under a laminar flow hood
Team member at a hydroponics outreach mural

Our advisors

Alejandro Barbarini

CEO & Co-founder, Ergo Bio

Fabio Zon

Founder, Sobo Bio

Let's build it together

Interested?

Investors, food and beverage companies, researchers: tell us who you are and how you'd like to get involved.

IP

Plant biotech patents and freedom to operate.

Finance

Seed rounds in Latin America.

De-risking

Molecular farming at scale.

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