# Ankit Gupta

> Ankit Gupta is a General Partner at Y Combinator, bringing a rare fusion of academic machine learning research, startup founding, and biotech industry leadership. He co-founded Reverie Labs (YC W18), an AI-driven drug discovery company that raised $31M and was acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks in 2024. A Harvard magna cum laude CS grad who taught three courses and won three Derek Bok Awards, Ankit now helps the next generation of founders navigate the same inflection points he once faced.

- **Role:** General Partner at Y Combinator
- **Organizations:** Y Combinator, Reverie Labs, Ginkgo Bioworks, Harvard University
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Joint BA/MS in Computer Science, Harvard University
- **Known for:** Co-founded Reverie Labs (YC W18), raised $31M, advanced medicines to clinical stage, Company acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks in 2024, Published research at ICML 2017: 'Dilated Convolutions for Modeling Long-Distance Genomic Dependencies'

## Career timeline

- **2014-2017** — Teaching Fellow at Harvard for CS 50, CS 181, CS 182 - won three Derek Bok Awards for Distinction in Teaching
- **2017** — Published ICML paper 'Dilated Convolutions for Modeling Long-Distance Genomic Dependencies' - won Speaker Award and Best Poster at ICML Workshop on Computational Biology
- **2018** — Co-founded Reverie Labs (YC W18) with Jonah Kallenbach - applied ML to small-molecule drug discovery
- **2018-2024** — Served as Co-founder and CTO of Reverie Labs, raised $31M from YC, First Round Capital, and Ridgeback, partnered with Roche and Genentech
- **2024-02** — Reverie Labs acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks
- **2024-2025** — Head of AI/ML Advancement and Senior Director of ML Research at Ginkgo Bioworks, training foundation models for protein and nucleic acid design
- **2025-01** — Joined Y Combinator as Visiting Partner
- **2025** — Promoted to General Partner at Y Combinator

## Achievements

- Co-founded Reverie Labs (YC W18), raised $31M, advanced medicines to clinical stage
- Company acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks in 2024
- Published research at ICML 2017: 'Dilated Convolutions for Modeling Long-Distance Genomic Dependencies'
- Won Speaker Award and Best Poster at ICML Workshop on Computational Biology (2017)
- Three Derek Bok Awards for Distinction in Teaching at Harvard
- Graduated magna cum laude with highest honors from Harvard
- Phi Beta Kappa inductee
- Named General Partner at Y Combinator in 2025
- Led partnerships with Roche and Genentech for Reverie Labs
- High school team captain for Oregon American Regions Math League (ARML)

## Latest updates

- **2025-05** — Serving as General Partner at Y Combinator, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, mentoring AI and biotech founders
- **2025-01** — Joined Y Combinator as Visiting Partner before being elevated to General Partner
- **2024-02** — Reverie Labs acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks; joined Ginkgo as Head of AI/ML Advancement

## Links

- Website: https://ankitg.me/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankitvgupta
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/agupta
- GitHub: https://github.com/ankitvgupta

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/ankit-gupta
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-09