Neeka Mashouf and Dr. Leila Mashouf began their research careers at fifteen. Neeka published her first paper on artificial photosynthesis at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at fifteen before studying materials engineering and business at UC Berkeley. Leila trained as a physician at Harvard, with bioengineering research across Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and Harvard spanning cancer therapeutics and enzymatic pathways.

They founded Rubi in 2021 around a simple insight: enzymes build some of nature’s most remarkable materials from carbon inputs, and could enable the next-era industrial manufacturing platform. Working out of a public biohacking lab, the sisters pioneered Rubi’s first process, developed the first-of-its-kind anabolic enzyme platform, and demonstrated that cellulose could be synthesized cell-free from CO₂. Growing up around their family’s apparel business had also given them a firsthand view of global material supply chains — and where a fundamentally new manufacturing technology could change them.

Today, Rubi operates its enzyme platform at scale, with 15 commercial partnerships and more than $60 million in signed offtake term sheets spanning fashion, consumer goods, and advanced materials. Rubi's work has been recognized with the European Patent Office’s 2025 Young Inventors Prize, H&M Foundation Global Change Award, MIT 35 Under 35, World Economic Forum Tech Pioneers, Forbes 30 Under 30, and Business of Fashion 500. Their award-winning enzymatic platform now produces materials ranging from cellulose fibers and formulation ingredients to carbon fiber precursors.