Akash Vaswani, General Partner

Akash has been a technologist from a young age. He started coding at age 10, and by 15 was representing the UAE at international robotics competitions. He moved to Canada at 17 to study Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where, thanks to Velocity, he was first exposed to the startup ecosystem. While an undergraduate student, Akash cofounded age-tech startup Sensassure, which was acquired in 2016.​

Akash’s career progressed at Palantir (PLTR: 50 B) as a data scientist and team lead. Later, he became the Director of Technology for a rapidly growing startup called CurbFlow, building embedded computer vision systems. When Palantir went public Akash recognized an opportunity, and within a few months he started Alicorn Ventures to invest in the great companies in his peer ecosystem. In 2022, Velocity Fund and Alicorn merged to double down on serving the UWaterloo ecosystem.​

Akash has led investments into 19 companies and helped dozens more during his time at Velocity as a leader on the fund and a business advisor. Now, through the Velocity Fund, he is continuing to demonstrate his commitment to the UWaterloo community, where he began his startup journey 12 years ago.