Venture investor and former banker
Orinda, CA
Ajay Gupta had a career in equity trading for 22 years, starting as a quant in derivatives trading and eventually running the Asia-Pacific Equity Trading business of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. This exciting path took him to the global financial centers of New York, London, Zurich, Singapore, Tokyo and finally Hong Kong.
Ajay always had a yearning to work with startup founders so he moved to the Bay Area in 2014. He has since invested in over two dozen startups across deep tech, life sciences, fintech, climate tech, marketplaces and edtech fields. He is an active investor and advisor in several hubs of innovation in the valley, such as YCombinator, MIT Angels, MIT Venture Mentoring Service, Berkeley Skydeck and VC funds.
In 2021 Ajay launched NZVC, an early stage VC fund investing in New Zealand startups where he saw an incredible venture ecosystem being built. He is passionate about climate change and advises Starshot Capital, a VC fund that invests in climate technology startups.
He is a Board of Trustee at The College Preparatory School, a private high school in Oakland, where he is engaged in their endowment management.
Ajay grew up in northern India and attended the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur studying Civil Engineering. As a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he worked on the design of a new kind of tunnel boring machine.
