Mr. Ajay Kshatriya’s career mission is to build science-based companies.
Currently, Ajay is the Chief Executive Officer of Aizen Therapeutics, pioneering a new class of medicines using mirror peptides to treat a variety of unmet diseases. He also serves as Partner at Wilson Hill Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm, where he invests in science-based startups emerging from the California Institute of Technology.
Previously, Ajay founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of Biota, a pioneer in environmental genomics, that achieved 8-digit revenue and was acquired by the industrial biotech leader, Novozymes (NZYM) in 2021. Biota scaled a University-based microbiome data platform into a genomics diagnostics business that created $400M in economic value and saved 1.2B gallons of water for 20+ industrial companies.
Prior to founding Biota, Ajay was an associate in a $100M seed fund spun out from Mohr Davidow Ventures, XSeed Capital, that formed companies from science innovations emerging from Stanford and Berkeley. Ajay began his career at the world-leading biotechnology pioneer Genentech, where he held various positions in product operations, including two product core teams in early stage oncology.
Ajay holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley, an M.S. in engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Berkeley-Haas School of Business. He was an active member and leader within YPO, a global organization for CEOs. Ajay resides in San Diego with his wife Krista and two children.