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WHERE
INNOVATION
GOES BANANAS.

We take the world's most underrated fruit and do unreasonable things with it. Caffeination. Fermentation. Possibly a few other -ations still under wraps. Backed by serious science, three university partnerships, and a banana-shaped gap in the market.

See the projects
3
University Partners
Monash, University of Melbourne, Swinburne — active R&D collaborations
1
Working Prototype
Bench-top prototype of the core product, developed with research partners
3
Product Lines
Fresh functional fruit, fermented beer, fermented wine — all from one raw material
2+3.5
Companies Built
2 pharma biotech companies founded. 3.5 new ventures underway — including this one.
Current projects The Portfolio
Flagship  ·  Active R&D
BLUE BANANA

The world's first caffeinated fresh banana. A shot of caffeine, delivered via the world's most portable fruit. No can. No crash. No artificial anything. Three university partners are helping us figure out exactly how to do this at scale — and one bench-top prototype is already proving it works.

Active R&D See the full page →
Beverage  ·  In Development
YEAST MODE

Banana beer — brewed from surplus and reject fruit because the bin is a terrible destination for perfectly good raw material. The caffeinated variant is also on the table. Built on the same waste-stream logic as Blue Banana: turn the problem into the product.

In Development
Beverage  ·  In Development
CHATEAU REJECT

Banana wine. The name is honest. The ambition is not. Made from the fruit the supermarkets didn't want, for the consumers who definitely will. Because the reject stream is one of the most undervalued assets in the entire banana supply chain.

In Development
2+3.5
Companies built · still going
DR. GREGOR LICHTFUSS
Founder  ·  HBTX / RBSC Ventures / Ribosomic Pty Ltd  ·  lichtfuss.earth

Monash PhD (2012). Founded two pharmaceutical biotech companies. Currently building 3.5 new ventures across biotech and beyond — the 0.5 is complicated and involves a non-profit, which is exactly the kind of thing that happens when you genuinely can't stop starting things.

HBTX is one of the 3.5. It started as a personal problem on a mountain — exhausted, out of energy, wondering why someone hadn't put caffeine in a banana yet. It became serious when the fruit waste data came in. The idea is still funny. The science and the opportunity are not.

October 2026: first investor pitch. If you're reading this before then, you're exactly who this page is for.

University Research Partners
Monash University
University of Melbourne
Swinburne University
The Journey — 2023 to October 2026
2023
The Idea
Born from a mountain, a dead Red Bull, and a question nobody had answered yet. Filed under HBTX for later.
Feb 2025
EvokeAG — Brisbane
A conference conversation unlocks the science that turns the idea from interesting into viable. "Later" becomes now.
Aug 2025
Monash TeaMWork
First external validation. Multidisciplinary student team develops the initial concept and confirms the market opportunity.
Jan 2026
HBTX Goes Official
Registered as an Australian Business Name under Ribosomic Pty Ltd. The project gets a legal home and a real deadline.
Feb–Mar 2026
University Partnerships Lock In
UoM MSc Biotechnology and Swinburne Health Sciences come on board as industry research partners. Three universities, one banana.
Jul 2026
Monash Startup Sprint + TeaMWork
Prototype range built and tested at the Sprint Marketplace. Second Monash TeaMWork cohort runs concurrently.
Aug 2026
Industry Outreach
Approaching banana growers and processors. Supply chain conversations begin.
Sep 2026
Pitch Preparation
Investor deck, financial model, go-to-market strategy locked in.
Oct 2026
University of Melbourne — Results In
Research outcomes from the UoM partnership land. Whatever they say, we'll work with it.
Oct 2026
First Investor Pitch
Presenting to initial investor group. Seed round.