Kiril Smilansky

Kiril Smilansky is the Co-Founder & CEO of TeXperience, which is developing a hardware and software platform for food manufacturers to produce affordable high end plant-based meat alternatives using a patented AI-powered multi-texture extrusion technology. By reaching price parity and texture similarity with the animal products they strive to replace, the industry can launch on a commercial scale and prosper.

Previously, he was VP Data at Agritask, where he built a new roadmap and hired a new team resulting with new (and first) data products for their clients. At Prosus Group (AEX:PRX), he drove the strategy and execution of new innovative big data solutions, which drove over 35% growth in a multi-million-dollar product. Starting as a sole employee in Israel, he has built the “Data Insights & Analytics” function from the ground up, including setting the goals, getting the buy-in from executive stakeholders, first doing all the R&D hands on, later hiring and coaching people and building a team as a sole manager in Israel, working with development teams and researchers overseas on products he owned. As part of the Naspers Ventures team, he led strategic projects on multiple large deals, including the DD on $1.8B acquisition. Previously he also worked at Similarweb and Google, both in Ireland and Israel. With an Msc in industrial engineering from Ben Gurion University in Israel and over 10 years of experience, he has a robust business and technology background and a successful track record of leading data functions and strategic work that have yielded tangible improvements in business outcomes.

Kiril lives in kibbutz Lahav in Israel with his wife and two kids, and recently became passionate about leveraging computational biology and AI to reduce the environmental and ethical impact of the animal food industry and hence decided to start a startup in the space.