Shiru

Shiru is an ingredient discovery company that applies artificial intelligence, bioinformatics and precision biology to identify natural proteins from plants and microbes for use in food, beverage, personal care, cosmetics, agriculture and advanced materials. Its discovery engine, branded Flourish, and its web-based platform ProteinDiscovery.ai let users search a database of more than 33 million molecules by protein sequence, functional use and predicted expression efficiency; the company states the database was distilled from over 450 million natural proteins. Customers can approach the company with a functional problem statement (for example, a natural emulsifier stable under acidic conditions, or plant proteins that mimic casein) rather than a specific known protein, and Shiru's machine learning models predict which natural proteins will deliver the desired performance.

The company's first in-house ingredients are OleoPro, a structured fat that combines liquid oils with platform-identified plant proteins to replace saturated animal fats and tropical oils such as palm and coconut, and uPro, the texturizing protein used within OleoPro. OleoPro is solid at room temperature, is described as containing 80% less saturated fat, and received a US patent. Cosmetic variants are marketed as C-OleoPro, a protein-based emollient for skin and hair care, and C-uPro, an emulsifying protein for cosmetic formulations. Additional pipeline programs include natural sugar replacements/sweet proteins, a clean-label methylcellulose alternative for plant-based meat binding, and a plant protein egg alternative.

Shiru also runs consortium-style research programs, most recently the GLP-1 Innovation Alliance, a paid multi-member consortium in which food, beverage and supplement companies fund and access discovery work on natural proteins and peptides that activate GLP-1 and related appetite/metabolism receptors.

Founding story

Shiru was founded in 2019 by Dr. Jasmin Hume, who serves as founder and CEO.

Business model

Shiru discovers ingredients and works with partner companies that commercialize them. Revenue-generating routes described include licensing discovered ingredients and associated intellectual property, co-development and technology-integration partnerships with CPG and ingredient companies, sales of its own market-ready ingredients such as OleoPro and uPro, access to the ProteinDiscovery.ai platform, and tiered paid membership in research consortia such as the GLP-1 Innovation Alliance (three tiers — Discovery Leader, Innovation Partner, Observer Member — with pricing scaled by company size and a 15-month, five-quarter commitment).

Ingredient and IP licensing, partner co-development agreements, product sales of platform-discovered ingredients, platform access via ProteinDiscovery.ai, and consortium membership fees.

Traction

OleoPro and uPro were reported in April 2025 to have scaled to commercial production, with the CEO stating the products would generate revenue in that quarter. OleoPro has been granted a USPTO patent. Announced partners include Griffith Foods (discovery and scale-up of sustainable food ingredients), Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition Partners (sweet proteins to replace sugar), and GreenLab (corn-based protein expression). ProteinDiscovery.ai was named to TIME's 2024 Best Inventions.

Latest developments

In 2025 Shiru launched a global search for a beverage partner for a natural sugar replacement (January), announced the GreenLab corn-based expression partnership (March), reported commercial-scale production of OleoPro and uPro (April), and opened the GLP-1 Innovation Alliance consortium (June), with a 15 August 2025 founding-member application deadline, an October 2025 development kickoff, first results expected within 2025, and re-enrollment planned for summer 2026.