Ankesh Madan

Ankesh is a deep tech investor, entrepreneur, and recovering materials engineer. In 2014, Ankesh co-founded Undercover Colors, a startup that was dedicated to ending drug-facilitated sexual assault, and went on to raise $14M+ from Mark Cuban and other investors. After helping to build up early operations at the startup, he went on to work at Propel(x) to increase access to capital for deep tech startups, and eventually transitioned to venture capital at Plug and Play Ventures. In his current role at Hitachi Ventures, Ankesh invests in technologies spanning synthetic biology, smart grid, robotics, healthcare, etc. A North Carolina native, Ankesh graduated from North Carolina State University with a B.S. in Materials Science & Engineering, and completed two years of Ph.D. coursework at Duke University.