# Abhishek Jha

> Abhishek Jha is the Co-Founder and CEO of Elucidata, a San Francisco-based AI company making biomedical data AI-ready for drug discovery and pharmaceutical R&D. A trained physical chemist with a PhD from the University of Chicago and postdoctoral work at MIT, he spent years at Agios Pharmaceuticals contributing to four FDA-approved first-in-class therapies before co-founding Elucidata in 2015. Under his leadership, the company has raised over $22.7M in funding, grown to 170 employees, and achieved $22.2M ARR, while evolving from a data-curation platform into an AI company solving out-of-distribution (OOD) problems in biomedical research - work that earned Elucidata recognition as one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in 2024.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Elucidata
- **Organizations:** Elucidata, Agios Pharmaceuticals, MIT, University of Chicago, IIT Bombay
- **Nationality:** Indian-American
- **Education:** Integrated Master's in Physical Chemistry, IIT Bombay (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay), PhD, Chemistry, University of Chicago, Postdoctoral Fellow - Computational Biology & Immunology, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- **Known for:** Co-founder of Elucidata, serving 100+ pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies, Contributed to 4 FDA-approved first-in-class therapies at Agios Pharmaceuticals, Led Elucidata to $22.2M ARR with 170 employees

## Career timeline

- **2001-2007** — PhD in Chemistry at University of Chicago
- **Post-2007** — Postdoctoral fellow at MIT, building computational models for proteins and systems-level immune models
- **~2008-2014** — Senior Scientist at Agios Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, MA - contributed to 4 FDA-approved first-in-class therapies
- **2015** — Co-founded Elucidata with Swetabh Pathak and Richard Kibbey
- **2018** — Raised seed funding from Hyperplane Venture Capital (June 2018)
- **2019** — Elucidata named to YourStory Tech30 list for accelerating drug discovery with AI
- **2022** — Raised $16M Series A led by Eight Roads Ventures with F-Prime Capital, IvyCap Ventures, Hyperplane VC
- **2024** — Elucidata named Fast Company Most Innovative Company in Biotech; won NCI AI-Readiness Challenge; $22.2M ARR milestone
- **2024** — Strategic pivot to data-centric AI and out-of-distribution (OOD) intelligence focus
- **2025** — Partnership with Sapien Biosciences to transform biobank assets into AI-ready data products
- **2026-01** — Launched Elucidata AI Labs to advance biomedical AGI; named BigDATAwire People to Watch 2026

## Achievements

- Co-founder of Elucidata, serving 100+ pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies
- Contributed to 4 FDA-approved first-in-class therapies at Agios Pharmaceuticals
- Led Elucidata to $22.2M ARR with 170 employees
- Raised $22.7M+ total funding including $16M Series A
- Elucidata named Fast Company Most Innovative Company in Biotech (2024)
- Won National Cancer Institute AI-Readiness Challenge
- Ranks 7th globally in Broad Institute ML Challenge
- Won $150,000 and Startup of the Year at SaaStr AI + Google for Startups
- Named BigDATAwire People to Watch 2026
- Built Polly platform supporting 26+ data types and 30+ bioinformatics pipelines
- Supporting 40+ drug programs at IND or later stages
- PhD from University of Chicago; postdoctoral research at MIT

## Latest updates

- **2026-01** — Launched Elucidata AI Labs aimed at solving out-of-distribution problems for biomedical AGI
- **2026-01** — Named to BigDATAwire's People to Watch 2026 list
- **2025-06** — Announced strategic partnership with Sapien Biosciences to transform biobank assets into AI-ready data products
- **2024-02** — Elucidata named Fast Company Most Innovative Company in Biotech category
- **2024-00** — Company reaches $22.2M ARR milestone with 170 employees

## Links

- Website: https://elucidata.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishek-jha-leading-data-centric-solutions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElucidataCorporation/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/abhishek-jha
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-27