Ankesh Madan
Principal at Obvious Ventures
San Francisco, California
Overview
Work Experience
Principal
2024 - Current
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
Investing in entrepreneurs who are reimagining trillion-dollar industries across planetary, human, and economic health.
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
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
Plug & Play Topeka is a Venture Capital company that offers corporate Innovation, open Innovation, and accelerator Programs.
Business Operations Associate
2016 - 2018
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
Undercover Colors is a consumer company that introduces date rape drug detection in drinks.
Raised $8,489,998.00.
Summer Associate
2015 - 2015
Cofounders Capital is a B2B software seed fund investing in the Southeast, with a particular focus on North Carolina
Intern
2013 - 2013