Fundraising Fox

Chirag Mahapatra

Founder

Founder at Blaze

San Francisco, California, United States

FoundedBlaze Β· YC

About

Chirag Mahapatra is co-founder and CTO of Blaze. He previously served as an engineering manager at Facebook working on privacy, infrastructure, and data challenges, and led membership and authentication infrastructure teams at Airbnb following the acquisition of Trooly, an ML startup where he worked. He holds a graduate degree from UC Berkeley and an undergraduate degree from NITK.

LinkedIn β†—X / Twitter β†—
Latest on 𝕏

Chirag Mahapatra @mahapatrachirag

Congrats @silasalberti and the Cognition team on the launch!! https://t.co/L66tz2ELPD

Jun 8, 2026 Β· β™₯ 13

Chirag Mahapatra @mahapatrachirag

Great work @kunalbhatia91 and @tweetvbaskaran!! https://t.co/JjRoThcwL6

May 28, 2026 Β· β™₯ 2

Chirag Mahapatra @mahapatrachirag

We hypothesized that current models exhibit a meaningful weakness in image-based extraction and downstream reasoning on routine knowledge-work tasks. To quantify this failure mode, we evaluated model performance across a range of extraction-and-reasoning tasks in the finance

Apr 6, 2026 Β· β™₯ 5 Β· ⇄ 2

Founder at BlazeYC W22

Intro paths

YC

Chirag went through Y Combinator (Winter 2022) β€” any YC alum in your network can reach them through the YC community.

β†’

In turn, Chirag can intro founders to Blaze's investors below.

Blaze's investors Β· 7

Act One VenturesBling CapitalDigital Currency GroupFactionTRACTRAC (Third Round Analytics Capital)Y Combinator

Co-founders at Blaze

LRLauren Rothwell
Lauren RothwellFounder

Experience

  1. MercorVice President of Engineeringcurrent2026 β€” presentSan Francisco Bay Area
  2. MercorHead of Applied AI + GM, Code Evals2025 β€” 2026San Francisco Bay Area
  3. MercorHead of Platform Engineering2025San Francisco Bay Area
  4. StartupsAngel Investorcurrent2018 β€” presentSan Francisco Bay Area
  5. Blaze AI (YC W22)Founder2021 β€” 2025San Francisco, California, United States
  6. MetaEngineering Leader2020 β€” 2021San Francisco Bay Area
  7. AirbnbEngineering Leader2017 β€” 2020San Francisco Bay Area
  8. AirbnbSenior ML Engineer @ Trooly (acquired by Airbnb)2015 β€” 2017San Francisco Bay Area
  9. UC Berkeley College of EngineeringGraduate Teaching Assistant2016San Francisco Bay Area
  10. A9.com (an Amazon company)Software Engineer Intern2014 β€” 2015Palo Alto, California, United States
  11. Bring Me FoodFounder2012 β€” 2013
  12. Goldman SachsSummer Analyst2012

Education

  1. Y CombinatorW22
  2. University of ChicagoGraduate Joint Degree in Computer Science x Booth
  3. University of California, BerkeleyMaster's degree, Engineering

Skills & more

Python14Java12SQL9Matlab12C++8C6PHP4Linux2JavaScriptPython (Programming Language)1Clarisights2Algorithms10
+6 moreMachine LearningProject ManagementProgrammingOperations ResearchSoftware EngineeringData Structures

From Chirag's professional profile.

Same school

Also attended Y Combinator1,466

Akshat GoenkaInvestor at Moonfire VenturesJon XuGeneral Partner at Y CombinatorTed ChaiAssociate at Scale Venture PartnersLeo LuInvestor at Foundation CapitalMaroof AhmedFounder at Octopus VenturesYusuf SherwaniCo-Founder and CEO at Pelago; a Londoner living in New York City

+ 1,460 more

Also attended University of Chicago275

Mark SusterManaging Partner at Upfront VenturesShardul ShahInvestor at Index VenturesSam BlackmanEntrepreneur in Residence at GV (Google Ventures)Clay FisherInvestor at Spark CapitalJonas CiplickasPrincipal at Scale Venture PartnersJulia Gonzalez SandersPartner and General Counsel at Crosslink Capital

+ 269 more

Also attended University of California, Berkeley990

Byron DeeterPartner at Bessemer Venture PartnersTrevor OelschigInvestment Team at General CatalystBrendan Bulik-SullivanInvestor at GV (Google Ventures)Glen AndersonPartner at Monta Vista CapitalAnthony LinHead of Intel Capital, Corporate Vice President at Intel CapitalScott ShawChief of Staff at Intel Capital

+ 984 more

Shared employers

Also worked at Mercor23

Peter FentonGeneral Partner at BenchmarkJames DetweilerVP of Investments at Felicis VenturesNancy WangInvestor at Felicis VenturesSundeep PeechuGeneral Partner at Felicis VenturesNiko BonatsosInvestment Team at General CatalystVirat TalwarInvestor at Spark Capital

+ 17 more

Also worked at Meta160

TinaInvestments & Portfolio Services Team Member at Clear VenturesMike ArpaiaComputer scientist working on machine learning and data infrastructureKevin ColleranManaging Director at Slow VenturesJon ChuInvestor at Khosla VenturesRyan ScottInvestor at Khosla VenturesDavid YangPartner at Lux Capital

+ 154 more

Also worked at Airbnb106

Reid HoffmanCo-founder of LinkedIn; Partner at GreylockAlfred LinPartner at Sequoia CapitalHans TungManaging Partner at Notable CapitalKen ChenaultInvestment Team at General CatalystFraser KeltonInvestor at Spark CapitalBrenden GlapionCorporate Counsel at Greycroft

+ 100 more

Also worked at UC Berkeley College of Engineering12

Khalil FullerPartner & Head of Dorm at Pear VCDevin RossAssociate at Structural CapitalDanielle VivoDirector of Programs at Alchemist JapanAnkit MathurScout at Greylock PartnersButian L.Investor at NGC VenturesMedha KothariInvestor at Variant Fund

+ 6 more