# Aayam Bansal

> Aayam Bansal is the 18-year-old co-founder and CEO of Synthetic Sciences (YC W26), a company building AI co-scientists that run the full research loop - literature, hypotheses, experiments, and paper drafts. Before college he had already patented and sold an AI orthopaedic device and built COVID-19 helpline infrastructure serving tens of thousands of Indians daily. He met co-founder Ishaan Gangwani doing machine learning research at NUS, CMU, and MIT CSAIL, publishing at venues like NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, and CVPR. After a paper rejection convinced them the research process itself was broken, the pair raised roughly $1.5M and dropped out before their first college semester to fix it.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Synthetic Sciences
- **Organizations:** Synthetic Sciences, InkVell, Y Combinator, aisock
- **From:** India
- **Nationality:** Indian
- **Education:** Computer Science (left before completing first semester), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
- **Known for:** Co-founder and CEO of Synthetic Sciences (YC W26), which raised roughly $1.5M including $500K from Y Combinator, Built, patented, and sold an AI orthopaedic device at age 17, Built COVID-19 helpline infrastructure serving 50,000+ users daily in India

## Career timeline

- **2020** — Built COVID-19 helpline infrastructure used by 50,000+ people daily in India
- **2023** — Built, patented, and sold an AI orthopaedic device (aisock) for a five-figure sum at age 17
- **2024** — Conducted machine learning research at MIT CSAIL, CMU, NUS, and Harvard; published at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, and CVPR workshops
- **2025** — Co-founded InkVell (later Synthetic Sciences) with Ishaan Gangwani; left UIUC before the first semester ended
- **2026** — Synthetic Sciences joins Y Combinator's Winter 2026 batch; raises ~$1.5M; biology mode hits 92% on BixBench Verified

## Achievements

- Co-founder and CEO of Synthetic Sciences (YC W26), which raised roughly $1.5M including $500K from Y Combinator
- Built, patented, and sold an AI orthopaedic device at age 17
- Built COVID-19 helpline infrastructure serving 50,000+ users daily in India
- Published machine learning research at NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, AAAI, and CVPR
- Google Scholar record of 46+ citations, h-index of 3
- Synthetic Sciences' biology mode reached 92% on the BixBench Verified benchmark
- Among the youngest founders in YC history to secure pre-program funding at this level

## Latest updates

- **2026-01** — Synthetic Sciences (formerly InkVell) joins Y Combinator's Winter 2026 batch.
- **2026-02** — Company reports ~$1.5M raised and 92% performance for its biology mode on BixBench Verified.

## Links

- Website: https://www.aayambansal.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aayambansal/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/aayambansal
- GitHub: https://github.com/aayambansal

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/aayam-bansal
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-03