Vik Bajaj

Vik Bajaj is an American physical chemist and biotechnology executive who co-founded Project Prometheus in November 2025 with Jeff Bezos and serves as co-chief executive officer alongside him. Bajaj previously co-founded Verily, Alphabet's life-sciences subsidiary; the cancer-detection company GRAIL; and Xaira Therapeutics, an AI-driven drug-discovery company; he is also chief executive of Foresite Labs within Foresite Capital. As of May 2026, Bajaj is the operating co-chief executive of Project Prometheus, the physical-AI laboratory that closed a $10 billion Series A at a $38 billion valuation in April 2026.

At a glance

• Education: Combined B.A. and M.S. in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania; Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley in the Alex Pines lab.
• Current role: Co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Project Prometheus, since November 2025. Concurrently chief executive of Foresite Labs, managing director at Foresite Capital, and adjunct associate professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
• Key contributions: Co-founder of Verily (2013) and founding chief scientific officer through October 2016; co-founder and chief scientific officer of GRAIL (2016 to 2017); co-founder of Xaira Therapeutics (2024); co-founder and co-chief executive of Project Prometheus (2025); recipient of the Anatole Abragam Prize in 2013 for work in magnetic-resonance methodology.
• Public profile: Limited compared with peer founder-executives in frontier AI; podcast and conference appearances concentrated on biotechnology and drug-discovery topics.
• LinkedIn: drvikbajaj
• Personal site: vikbajaj.org
• Wikipedia: Vik Bajaj

Origins

Bajaj earned a combined Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science degree in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, then completed a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and pursued postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley in the laboratory of Alex Pines, a long-running researcher in nuclear magnetic-resonance methodology at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Bajaj's early academic career was concentrated at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he served as a research scientist and principal investigator across approximately seven years and held a continuing principal-investigator role in the Pines group at Berkeley. The work centered on magnetic-resonance methodology, including high-field dynamic nuclear polarization, remote detection of microfluidic flow, and optical encoding of magnetic-resonance signals. In 2013 the International Society of Magnetic Resonance awarded him the inaugural Anatole Abragam Prize for these contributions. The U.S. Department of Energy granted his group two R&D 100 Awards in 2011 and 2013 for commercialized technologies. Bajaj has held an adjunct associate-professor appointment at the Stanford University School of Medicine since September 2014.

Career

In March 2013 Bajaj co-founded Google Life Sciences as a project within Google X, Alphabet's moonshot research organization. He held a director role at Google X and the title of chief scientific officer at the life-sciences project, and contributed to several other Google X programs, working closely with Google co-founder Sergey Brin on efforts including the autonomous-delivery drone program that became Wing and the autonomous-driving program that became Waymo.

In December 2015 Google Life Sciences was rebranded as Verily and spun out as a standalone Alphabet subsidiary. Bajaj continued as founding chief scientific officer alongside chief executive Andrew Conrad, chief technology officer Brian Otis, chief medical officer Jessica Mega, and director of software Thomas Stanis. The Verily founding agenda spanned diagnostics, surgical robotics, and longitudinal biomedical research, including the Project Baseline Study. Bajaj's operating role at Verily ended in October 2016.

Bajaj joined the cancer-detection company GRAIL in September 2016 as chief scientific officer through September 2017, and served on its scientific advisory board through August 2021. GRAIL had been incubated within Illumina and spun out to develop blood-based liquid-biopsy methods for early cancer detection; Illumina re-acquired the company in 2021 in a transaction valued at roughly $8 billion.

In October 2017 Bajaj joined Foresite Capital as a managing director. In 2018 he co-founded and became chief executive of Foresite Labs, the firm's incubator focused on data-driven biotechnology and healthcare-services companies. Bajaj also serves on the boards of Genomics England (since 2021) and Quantum-Si (since June 2022).

In January 2023 Bajaj co-founded Xaira Therapeutics, an AI-driven drug-discovery company that launched publicly in April 2024 with $1 billion in funding, a round that Reuters and other launch coverage characterized as one of the largest single-company financings in biotechnology to date. The launch announcement listed founding chief executive Marc Tessier-Lavigne, former president of Stanford University, alongside co-founders Robert Nelsen of ARCH Venture Partners and Bajaj. Bajaj has subsequently held an interim-president role at Xaira while continuing as a director.

In November 2025 Bajaj co-founded Project Prometheus with Jeff Bezos and serves as co-chief executive officer alongside Bezos. The company launched with $6.2 billion in initial capitalization and closed a $10 billion Series A in April 2026 at a $38 billion post-money valuation, with JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock among the disclosed participants. Project Prometheus targets AI systems for engineering, manufacturing, aerospace, robotics, and drug discovery. Press coverage since the founding has described the company as employing more than 120 researchers recruited from OpenAI, xAI, Meta AI / FAIR, and Google DeepMind.

Affiliations

• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: Research scientist and principal investigator, approximately 2004 to 2013.
• Stanford University School of Medicine: Adjunct associate professor, September 2014 to present.
• Google X / Verily: Co-founder and chief scientific officer, March 2013 to October 2016. Chair of the Verily scientific advisory board afterward.
• GRAIL: Co-founder and chief scientific officer, September 2016 to September 2017. Scientific advisory board through August 2021.
• Foresite Capital: Managing director, October 2017 to present.
• Foresite Labs: Co-founder and chief executive officer, 2018 to present.
• Genomics England: Board member, 2021 to present.
• Quantum-Si: Board member, June 2022 to present.
• Xaira Therapeutics: Co-founder, director, and interim president, January 2023 to present.
• Project Prometheus: Co-founder and co-chief executive officer, November 2025 to present.

Notable contributions

Bajaj's public output is concentrated on the founding and senior leadership of multiple research and operating organizations across life sciences and physical-AI rather than on individual research authorship.

• Verily co-founding (March 2013). Co-founded Google Life Sciences within Google X with Andrew Conrad and others; continued as founding chief scientific officer after the December 2015 rebrand and Alphabet spin-out. Founding contributor to the Project Baseline Study of longitudinal population-scale biomedical data.
• GRAIL co-founding and scientific leadership (2016 to 2017). Founding chief scientific officer of the cancer-detection company through its early development of methylation-pattern liquid-biopsy methodology. Scientific advisory board service through August 2021.
• Foresite Labs founding (2018). Co-founder and chief executive of the data-science-and-healthcare incubator within Foresite Capital.
• Xaira Therapeutics co-founding (January 2023). Co-founder of the AI-driven drug-discovery company alongside Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Robert Nelsen. The company launched publicly in April 2024 with $1 billion in financing.
• Project Prometheus co-founding (November 2025). Co-founder and co-chief executive officer of the physical-AI laboratory alongside Jeff Bezos. Initial $6.2 billion capitalization, with a subsequent $10 billion Series A in April 2026 at a $38 billion post-money valuation.
• Anatole Abragam Prize (2013). Inaugural recipient of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance prize, cited for high-field dynamic nuclear polarization, remote detection of microfluidic flow, and optical encoding of magnetic-resonance signals. Two R&D 100 Awards (2011 and 2013) for commercialized magnetic-resonance technologies.
• Public-talk record. Solo interview with Boaz Ashkenazy on the Shift AI Podcast on October 21, 2025, on AI-driven drug discovery. Earlier appearances include the Biotech2050 Podcast in May 2024 and the BIOS Podcast on the techbio era. No primary-press long-form interviews specific to Project Prometheus have been published as of May 2026.

Investments and boards

• Foresite Capital (AI / Software): Managing director, October 2017 to present. The life-sciences-and-data-science venture firm raised a $900 million Fund VI in 2024.
• Foresite Labs (AI / Software): Co-founder and chief executive officer, 2018 to present. The data-driven biotech-and-healthcare incubator raised a $173 million dedicated fund in 2021.
• Genomics England (Software): Board member, 2021 to present.
• Quantum-Si (Software): Board member, June 2022 to present.
• Xaira Therapeutics (AI / Software): Co-founder and director, January 2023 to present. The $1 billion AI drug-discovery company launched in April 2024.
• Project Prometheus (AI): Co-founder and co-chief executive officer, November 2025 to present. The physical-AI laboratory capitalized at $16.2 billion across two rounds.

No additional public personal angel-investor activity is on record outside the Foresite Capital and Foresite Labs roles in AI, semiconductors, datacenters, software, or energy as of May 2026.

Network

Bajaj's longest-running professional relationships span the organizations he co-founded or co-led. At Verily, his founding-team peers include chief executive Andrew Conrad, chief technology officer Brian Otis, chief medical officer Jessica Mega, and director of software Thomas Stanis. The Google X period placed him in working contact with Sergey Brin on the moonshot portfolio. At GRAIL, his early-stage colleagues included founding chief executive Jeff Huber and the broader Illumina-affiliated scientific team that incubated the company.

At Xaira Therapeutics, Bajaj's co-founders are Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Robert Nelsen, the ARCH Venture Partners managing director. Xaira's executive team also includes co-founder Hetu Kamisetty (formerly of Meta and the Institute for Protein Design) and former Genentech executives Arvind Rajpal and Don Kirkpatrick.

At Project Prometheus, Bajaj's co-founder and co-chief executive is Jeff Bezos, the founder and former chief executive officer of Amazon and founder of Blue Origin. The dual co-CEO arrangement is structurally unusual among AI laboratories at this scale; primary press coverage describes Bezos as in close daily operating contact with Bajaj on company strategy. The senior research and engineering team at Project Prometheus has not been disclosed in detail.

Position in the field

As of May 2026, Bajaj occupies a structurally distinctive position among co-founders of recently founded AI laboratories. The career arc spanning physical-chemistry doctoral training, magnetic-resonance methodology research, the Google X moonshot environment, the Verily and GRAIL founding teams, the Foresite Labs incubator, and the Xaira Therapeutics and Project Prometheus founding pairs is unusually broad even by the standards of senior industrial-research leadership. The pattern of recurring co-founder roles in technology-and-life-sciences ventures is closer to that of a serial scientific entrepreneur than to that of a single-organization research-laboratory leader.

The public profile is comparatively low. Bajaj has been a guest on biotechnology and venture-capital podcasts since at least 2024, but he has not given a comparable volume of conference talks or long-form interviews to peer founder-executives at other recently founded AI laboratories. Press coverage since November 2025 has focused on the structural facts of the Project Prometheus founding (the Bezos partnership, the funding rounds, the application areas) rather than on Bajaj's individual public commentary.

Project Prometheus has been described in industry coverage as the most directly capitalized attempt by a credible founding team to build a physical-world foundation-model laboratory. The drug-discovery application area aligns directly with Bajaj's prior experience at Verily, GRAIL, and Xaira; the broader physical-AI scope is the principal new strategic territory the partnership with Bezos opens.

Outlook

Open questions over the next 6 to 18 months:

• First Project Prometheus public artifact. Whether the company ships any public-facing demonstration in any of its stated application areas, and what form it takes.
• Bajaj-led application-area focus. Whether the application areas closest to Bajaj's prior experience (drug discovery, biology, biomedical instrumentation) are prioritized as early output, or whether the broader physical-systems-engineering applications proceed in parallel.
• Public-communication posture. Whether Bajaj's public profile expands as Project Prometheus moves toward first-product release.
• Xaira and Foresite Labs continuing engagement. Whether the operating engagement with Xaira (including the interim-president role) and the chief-executive role at Foresite Labs persists alongside the Project Prometheus co-CEO role.
• Series B timing and structure. The timing and lead investor of the next Project Prometheus financing event.
• Bezos partnership operating dynamics. The continuing structure of the dual co-CEO arrangement as the company moves from stealth to product release.

Sources

• Vik Bajaj. Wikipedia biographical entry covering education, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory period, and the career path through Google X, Verily, GRAIL, Foresite Labs, Xaira Therapeutics, and Project Prometheus.
• Vikram Bajaj's Biography. Personal-site biography covering education, academic appointments, awards, and operating roles.
• Vik Bajaj Bio at Xaira Therapeutics. Company-site bio covering current operating roles and academic background.
• Bezos's Project Prometheus AI Lab Hits $38 Billion Valuation After Funding Round. Bloomberg coverage of the April 2026 Series A close, with valuation, lead-investor structure, and stated application areas.
• Jeff Bezos is reportedly becoming a CEO again, and it's for a $6.2 billion AI startup called Project Prometheus. Fortune coverage of the November 2025 founding announcement, with description of Bajaj's Google X background and the co-CEO partnership.
• Jeff Bezos reportedly returns to the trenches as co-CEO of new AI startup, Project Prometheus. TechCrunch coverage of the founding and Bajaj's role.
• Who is Vikram Bajaj, the MIT-trained scientist steering Bezos' AI Project?. Business Standard biographical coverage of Bajaj's career path.
• BlackRock and JPMorgan back Bezos' AI lab in a $10B raise at $38B valuation. Tech Funding News coverage of the Series A participating-investor disclosure.
• Xaira Therapeutics Launches to Deliver Transformative Medicines. BusinessWire press release announcing the April 2024 launch with $1 billion in financing and listing co-founders.
• Xaira, an AI drug discovery startup, launches with a massive $1B. TechCrunch coverage of the April 2024 Xaira launch.
• Foresite Labs' new $173M fund to bankroll fewer startups but big ideas fueled by data. Fierce Biotech coverage of the Foresite Labs incubator fund.
• Foresite, a biotech venture firm, reloads with $900M fund. BioPharma Dive coverage of the Foresite Capital Fund VI close.
• Quantum-Si Appoints Vikram Bajaj, Ph.D., to Board of Directors. Quantum-Si press release on the June 2022 board appointment.
• Vik Bajaj wins NMR prize. Pines Lab announcement of the 2013 Anatole Abragam Prize.
• Anatole Abragam Prize. International Society of Magnetic Resonance prize page listing Bajaj as the 2013 recipient.
• How AI Will Transform Drug Discovery with Foresite Labs CEO Vik Bajaj. Shift AI Podcast solo interview with host Boaz Ashkenazy, October 21, 2025.
• Tech-Biotech Convergence, Growth, and Global Lessons. Biotech2050 Podcast interview from May 2024 on tech-biotech convergence and Foresite Labs.
• Project Prometheus (company). Wikipedia entry covering founding date, founder pair, funding rounds, and stated application areas.
• Photo: text-mode card generated via scripts/make_lab_card.py --text "Vik Bajaj". No CC-licensed portrait was located through Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, or a Project Prometheus press kit as of May 2026.