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Jeffrey Dietrich
Jeffrey Dietrich is a bioengineer-turned-coffee-founder who built Rarebird around paraxanthine, the molecule your body actually makes when it metabolizes caffeine. After a PhD at UC Berkeley in Jay Keasling's lab and nearly a decade co-founding and running R&D at the industrial biotech company Lygos, Dietrich turned his own dwindling caffeine tolerance into a company. Rarebird sells decaffeinated specialty coffee infused with lab-grade paraxanthine, promising the lift of coffee without the jitters, crash, or ruined sleep. Backed by Y Combinator, AgFunder, and two NSF grants, the company holds U.S. patents on the process and won the Specialty Coffee Association's Best New Product award.
Porifera
Porifera builds forward osmosis membrane systems that concentrate beverages and treat wastewater without heat or pressure. Its proprietary PFO technology removes water from juices, coffee, beer and wine while preserving flavor, aroma and color - cutting energy use up to 80% versus conventional evaporators. In 2025 the company launched Draftfox, a beer concentration and Microkeg dispense system that shrinks a keg by 6x.