LiberEat is a health-tech company using proprietary technology to revolutionise food safety. At its core is founder Barry Leaper, who made a decisive pivot from investment banking to build something meaningful, motivated by his wife and mother’s dietary restrictions and the daily risks faced by people managing food allergies.
Founded in the UK, LiberEat began with a consumer-facing food app before evolving into a powerful backend tool for identifying dangerous allergen and ingredient errors. Barry and his team realised their technology was more than a feature: it was the product.
Since then, LiberEat has worked with national and international food businesses, including major supermarket brands, global restaurant chains, and airlines. Their platform has flagged thousands of safety-critical errors that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.
Support from Techscaler, delivered by CodeBase, played a key role in expanding LiberEat’s mindset, network, and investor access, particularly through its Silicon Valley programme.
This is a case study on the tact of pivoting boldly, scaling smartly, and leveraging the right support.
The seeds of LiberEat were planted through personal connection. Barry’s co-founder had food allergies, and early prototypes focused on a consumer app that filtered menu options based on dietary needs. But the real breakthrough came when they realised the app’s backend was catching allergen errors in food industry data, errors that existing safety checks were missing.
Pivoting was an easy decision. The team dropped the app and focused on building a platform that could catch life-threatening mistakes before reaching a label or menu, and providing peace of mind for businesses and consumers alike.
That decision led to enterprise partnerships, industry validation, and a much larger mission.
Before joining Techscaler, LiberEat had a clear purpose, but needed the right environment to expand its reach and impact. The team faced familiar challenges: underwhelming investor support, limited access to global networks, and systemic underestimation of what Scottish tech startups could achieve.
Despite early success, they knew they had to look beyond traditional routes to scale safely and strategically. They were building a high-trust, safety-critical product that demanded not only funding, but belief.
Techscaler offered something different: a resource-backed access to global ambition and exposure, a network of experienced founders, and mentor-led actionable frameworks.
Techscaler International Programme’scohort to Silicon Valley became a clear turning point for LiberEat. The trip offered not just networking, but deep immersion in a global standard of speed, ambition, and founder support. Barry and his fellow founders were exposed to a meaningful fundraising environment. One where safety-focused startups were encouraged to develop and scale their product for a wider market. The experience reframed LiberEat’s expectations around what scaling could look like, directly resulting in U.S. funding, accelerated decision-making, and a renewed confidence in building at a global scale from Scotland.
Barry’s experience with Techscaler by CodeBase went beyond funding introductions. Through Techscaler’s Reforge and peer-focused programming, he gained structured space to assess priorities, iterate faster, and validate key assumptions.
The cohort model gave founders room to explore, while reinforcing shared ambition. Access to experienced founders and expert mentors, people who had done it before, proved invaluable. For LiberEat, this meant building confidence in their vision, while embedding speed and urgency into decision-making.
Crucially, the community offered a counterpoint to early suppositions: a reminder that scaling from Scotland with global intent isn’t just possible, it’s necessary.
Techscaler by CodeBase helped Barry shift from reactive problem-solving to strategic execution, giving LiberEat both the conviction and capability to scale impactfully.
Post-Techscaler, LiberEat entered a period of measurable traction. Their technology now supports enterprise-scale food companies in actively preventing harm and streamlining data. Since participating in the Silicon Valley programme, LiberEat has raised U.S. investment, expanded its client base, and seen their technology gain adoption across global supply chains.
The system has caught over 4,000 critical errors, each one a potentially life-threatening incident avoided. That level of real-world impact is what’s setting the company apart.
With product-market validation behind them, LiberEat is now focused on growing capacity without compromising the accuracy and reliability that define their platform. The team has begun fielding inbound interest from large-scale international clients, and multiple former customers have invited LiberEat into new organisations as they change roles—clear proof of trust and repeat value.
What was once a scrappy pivot has become a category-defining safety platform. The challenge now: scale the infrastructure and deepen integration.
Key Milestones:
Techscaler, delivered by CodeBase, provided more than programming. For Barry, it was a foundational shift in how to think, plan, and scale. The experience offered a playbook for building with global reach, reinforced by peer founders, expert mentorship, and investor access.
For other ecosystem builders, government, academia, and corporates, LiberEat’s story shows what happens when early support is tailored, founder-led, and globally connected.
Follow LiberEat on LinkedIn for updates on product developments, customer wins, and global expansion.
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