The start-up, founded late last year by childhood friends Dr. Paul Spagnuolo, a scientist at the University of Guelph, and Brian Johnston, an expert in IT and technology solutions, sought to overcome the limitations of traditional research and development models.
This led to AMBROSIA (Agentic Multi-Modal Biology and Research Operations System for Intelligent Analysis), an A.I.-based system that integrates biological data with intelligent research operations to accelerate product development, optimize the characterization of extracts and identify new target markets for existing ingredients.
From frustration to opportunity
Dr. Spagnuolo has been involved in the ingredient development space for a significant portion of his career as an academic and commercializing the technologies from his lab, notably avocatin B (AvoB) from avocado for metabolic health.
While Dr. Spagnuolo and Johnston followed different career paths, the pair found themselves spending significant time together last year during which Dr. Spagnuolo voiced some frustrations with his day-to-day because of the time-consuming, laborious and expensive nature of the traditional ingredient development process.
“When we’re doing these experiments in the lab, sometimes it’s like finding a light switch in the dark,” he told NutraIngredients. “You’re constantly just probing in multiple different directions until you go, ‘oh wait, that felt like something’ and then you start feeling a little bit closer—it helps narrow you down until you find the switch, flip it on, and all of a sudden you have your eureka moment."
“It was kind of like trying to figure out how to virtualize Paul’s brain,” Johnston added. “I think academia is ripe with opportunity to make things more efficient, and I was thinking about it, and then I grabbed my laptop and whipped up a proof of concept.”
Together, they translated the workflow spanning molecular target identification, pathway analysis and mechanistic hypothesis building into a computational engine capable of running autonomously within defined scientific guardrails.
“We built it based on an established successful platform, which is how we have been discovering, developing and validating food ingredients for over a decade through that very laborious, systematic cell/molecular process through the in vivo process to eventual clinical commercialization,” Dr. Spagnuolo said. “The blueprint existed, and Brian brilliantly computerized it.”
The team retrospectively tested Ambrosia on Dr. Spagnuolo’s AvoB research, which he said took his lab at least five years of traditional research focused on how acyl-CoA dehydrogenase influences mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation. Running this through Ambrosia led to the same answer in an hour.
There are limitations with the technology, they said. Results still need to be confirmed in the lab, and while it works on the molecular level, Johnson said it would not work for ingredients like probiotics but could work for postbiotic metabolites. A future version of the tool could also allow for combinations of molecules, he added.
Faster, smarter development
Dr. Spagnuolo started to contact his network within the global natural products sector to gauge interest in the platform. This was closely followed by an invitation to the International Conference on Food Supplements in November 2025 in Belgium and the opportunity to present the concept to dsm-firmenich and Nestlé at their respective headquarters in Switzerland.
The first client was secured even before the company had officially been incorporated, following a demonstration that impressed German-based ingredient supplier Finzelberg.
Dr. René Roth-Ehrang, member of the management board quality and development at Finzelberg GmbH, told NutraIngredients that his company has already had excellent experiences with Ambrosia.
“Through this advanced approach, Finzelberg uncovers how plant compounds interact with key biological pathways—such as hormone signaling, inflammation and detoxification,” he said. “This innovative method accelerates the development of effective botanical solutions, ensuring that Finzelberg’s products set new standards for natural health and scientific credibility.
“Recent analyses of Menofelis—Finzelberg’s extract from Siberian rhubarb, which supports women during menopause—demonstrated Ambrosia’s ability to identify multi-target profiles spanning hormone signaling, inflammation and detoxification. This enables faster, smarter development of plant-based solutions.”
Repurposing ingredients and differentiation through laboratory science
Dr. Spagnuolo said one aspect of the technology is attracting considerable interest from potential clients is around the discovery of new markets for established ingredients.
“I started my career completing a postdoc in the area of drug repurposing, and the concept there was to go into the pharma databases and see if there was anything that failed a clinical trial somewhere, understand where it failed and why it failed, and if there was any data we can leverage from that and then retool it and repackage it into something new,” he said. “Ambrosia can revolutionize the way we think of repurposing because it really allows us to narrow down where an ingredient could now be used again.”
In a world where the term A.I. is being applied liberally and new start-ups are launching almost daily, what separates Applied Laboratory Technologies and Ambrosia from what’s already out there?
“The tool is built based on what we have successfully done in the lab from discovery to commercialization,” Dr. Spagnuolo said.
Johnston agreed.
“Our differentiating factor is we built ours because a PhD had a problem,” he said. “The tagline on the website is ‘Where laboratory science meets computational power’. We put laboratory science first.”
