September 12, 2025·by Garry Tan

We’re thrilled to announce that Ankit Gupta is joining YC as our newest General Partner.

Ankit has already worked with dozens of YC founders as a visiting partner in recent batches. He has a rare blend of deep machine learning expertise and firsthand startup experience that make him an ideal mentor for founders building at the bleeding edge of AI. Though he'll frequently commute to SF, Ankit will primarily be based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts — re-establishing a YC foothold at the site of our original office!

Ankit’s YC journey began in the Winter 2018 batch, when he co-founded Reverie Labs, a biotech company applying machine learning to drug discovery. The team at Reverie developed machine learning models for small-molecule design, partnered with pharmaceutical companies, and advanced their own medicines before eventually being acquired by Ginkgo Bioworks in 2024.

Before founding Reverie, Ankit earned a B.A. and M.S. in Computer Science at Harvard and published research at ICML and other conferences on deep learning and large-scale model training. It’s that blend of research and founder experience that makes Ankit uniquely equipped to help the next generation of AI startups succeed.

We are super excited to have him and are certain his expertise will continue to support YC founders at every stage. Welcome, Ankit!