Ajay Kshatriya

Ajay founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of Biota, the pioneer in environmental genomics, that was acquired by the industrial biotech leader, Novozymes (NZYM). In 8 years, Biota scaled from university microbiome research to a commercial business that created $400M in economic value and saved 1.2B gallons of water for 20+ industrial companies.

Prior to founding Biota, Ajay was a venture capital investor in a $100M seed fund spun out from Mohr Davidow Ventures, XSeed Capital. The firm invested and formed companies based on university science innovations. Ajay began his career at the world-leading cancer therapeutic company Genentech, where he held various positions in product operations.

Ajay is an active member of YPO, a global organization for CEOs, where he serves on the Board of the Costal San Diego chapter and two Global networks, Deal and Entrepreneurship. He holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from U.C. Berkeley, an M.S. in engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Berkeley-Haas School of Business.