Riana Lynn, Science and Technology

Riana Lynn is the founder of Journey Foods, a food tech company that supports cutting-edge product management and data services for food businesses.

A biologist by training turned entrepreneur, Riana Lynn has developed high-growth and nationally recognised food businesses, using innovative technology. These include “Peeled”, at the time one of America’s fastest growing beverage brands offering bespoke beverage nutrition and early cold-press innovations, and “Food Trace” which developed software and mapping applications for better food sourcing management data.

After the acquisition of her second business, Riana Lynn was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Google. There, she acted as a business development coach, start-up mentor, and diversity advisor. Following this, she joined Cleveland Avenue, a private equity and venture capital fund focused on food and beverage brands. It was founded by former McDonald’s CEO, Don Thompson. In her capacity as Director, Riana worked with and advised several of their portfolio companies, including Beyond Meat, Farmwise, and Farmer’s Fridge.

Riana left Cleveland Avenue in 2018 to focus full-time on her latest venture, Journey Foods. The company’s proprietary AI platform helps companies use data to find the most nutritious ingredients at the lowest price. It also makes recommendations for healthy and affordable ingredient swaps. Journey’s customers include Ingredion and Unilever.

Her accomplishments have been featured on MIT 35 under 35, CNBC, Forbes, USA Today, Wired, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, Food Tank and more. Riana Lynn graduated from the University of North Carolina with a Bachelor of Science. She is a quarterly lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.