AM

Ankesh Madan

Principal at Obvious Ventures

San Francisco, California

Skills

Materials Characterization Techniques
Adobe Fireworks
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Technical Troubleshooting
InDesign
Photoshop
Research
Social Media
Microsoft Office
Leadership
Project Management
Market Research
Start-ups
Fundraising
Data Analysis
Nanotechnology
Entrepreneurship
PowerPoint
Public Speaking

Education

Work Experience

  • Principal

    2024

    Obvious is a venture capital firm investing in early-stage, purpose-driven entrepreneurs reimagining trillion-dollar industries. Our three investment pillars are planetary, human, and economic health. Obvious has over $1 billion AUM. Invested in: Zanskar (Series B) Unannounced (Series B) Board Observer: Zanskar

  • Angel Investor

    2021

    Stealth - domestic energy Mission Barns - cultivated meat from fat cells TeachMeTo - sports coaching for beginner athletes Captura - direct ocean carbon removal Opine - transforming the buyer-vendor relationship

2020 - 2024

  • Principal

    2023 - 2024

    Invested in early-stage startups ($600M AUM) across industrial decarbonization, synbio, CDR, mobility, and energy: Proscia (Series B) inVia Robotics (Series C) Provectus Algae (Pre-Series A) Strangeworks (Series A) Captura (Series A) Pow.bio (Series A) Thea Energy (Series A) unannounced power electronics co (Series A) Board observer: Provectus Algae

  • Senior Associate

    2022 - 2023

  • Associate

    2020 - 2022

  • Venture Associate

    2019 - 2020

2016 - 2018

  • Business Operations Associate

    2016 - 2018

2013 - 2016

  • Co-Founder, former Chief Science Officer

    2013 - 2016

    - Raised $15M+ from Mark Cuban and other investors to commercialize and launch D2C product for date rape drug detection - Led early R&D, licensing, and IP commercialization efforts, recruited R&D team, established technical milestones and roadmap

2015 - 2015

  • Summer Associate

    2015 - 2015

  • Intern

    2013 - 2013