Our Company

Rubens Technologies was founded in late 2018 by Daniel Pelliccia.

In 2018 Rubens Technologies was selected for the Runway HQ Accelerator and received an Entrepreneurship grant from the City of Greater Geelong, as well as a pilot project with HortInnovation. With these funds Daniel developed the first prototype and piloted nationally with Costa Fresh and Summerfruit Australia, and internationally with Zespri in New Zealand.

Daniel was joined in 2019 by Leesa Soulodre, General Partner at R3i Ventures. Leesa came in as co-founder bringing expertise in deep-tech innovation and international markets. Leesa is currently leading the market validation of Rubens Technologies in Europe.

Since then, Rubens Technologies went through a process of customer discovery and product refinement. In 2021 Rubens Technologies was selected for the Silicon Valley-based THRIVE Accelerator, by SVG Ventures, as the Victorian Government sponsored startup. Also in 2021 Rubens Technologies joined the evokeAG startup network by Agrifutures. Both accelerators have helped Rubens Technologies to position its product in the market, both nationally and internationally. With the first round of angel investment, Rubens Technologies completed the first product design and piloted its offering in the marketplace with fruit growers in Australia and overseas.

Since 2022, after completing the scanner development, we have deployed our scanners with apple and stone fruit growers and distributors, in Australia, South Africa and Türkiye. We also have ongoing pilots in Europe and south-east Asia.

Daniel Pelliccia, PhD

Founder and CEO

Physicist and data scientist. Daniel started his career as a physicist, developing imaging and sensing models for large scale facilities such as particle accelerators and synchrotrons in Europe, USA and Australia.

Daniel has been awarded an Early Career research award by the Australian Government in 2014 and developed technologies for microscopy and medical imaging.

In 2016, Daniel started a successful technical consulting career in the field of imaging technologies, spectroscopy and machine learning analytics. Some of his clients include the Victorian Government (Australia), the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, Agriculture Victoria and the Department of Primary Industries (Queensland, Australia).

David Lester, PhD

Business Development

Dr. Lester has had broad experience in development and commercialization of multiple products. He has performed these duties in large corporations, midsize companies and startups in the US, Australia, EU
and Singapore.

Presently he is an active advisor or team member of multiple startups where his focus is on ensuring that the company is built for future growth and development. He also focuses on company and product strategy and establishing a clear pathway to the appropriate market.

Aside from working with over 15 startups in Australia, US and EU, he has considerable public and private sector experience. He has worked at executive levels in big Pharma (Pfizer and Pharmacia) and had a successful career in the US regulatory agency, the USFDA.

Initially, he had a successful academic career working in leading research institutions including the National Institutes of Health, Harvard Medical School and Weizmann Institute (Israel). He received his doctorate from Northwestern University.

Kieran Hirsh, PhD

Data science

Dr. Hirsh has recently completed is PhD in astrophysics at the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (France). He has in-depth expertise in numerical analysis, numerical modelling and machine learning.

Kieran is working on the development of data pipelines and machine learning algorithms for fruit prediction based on Rubens sensors.

Leesa Soulodre, MBA, MiM

Advisor

As a serial in/entrepreneur and venture builder, Leesa Soulodre has worked for 20+ years on the cutting edge of innovation, technology and strategy consulting, advising 400+ multinationals and their start-ups in 19 sectors across Europe, the Asia-Pacific and the Americas.

From 2011-2014 Leesa worked with the world’s largest pension funds, asset managers and financial data providers on the development and commercialization of new ESG, Governance and Forensic Alpha Models with both GMI Ratings, Inc and Reprisk AG for portfolio risk management. These models are used today in the platforms of Factset, Six Telekurs, Interactive Data, Sungard, DJSI, and the FTSE4Good.

Leesa is an Adjunct Professor at SMU and IE Business Schools where she lectures on digital transformation, critical thinking and masters vs robots in a smart nation on the MBA, EMBA, Executive Education and Singapore Institute of Directors programs.