Devika Thapar
Co-founder, Chief Operating Officer and General Partner, Wilbe
Education and early career
Devika Thapar holds a BA in economics from St. Stephen's College in India and an MBA from Yale University[1][2]. She began her career in management consulting with Accenture India[2].
At Yale she worked in the university's Office of Technology Transfer, where she led spinout evaluation[2]. She then moved to IBM Watson in New York as head of new products[1][2].
Co-founding Wilbe
Thapar co-founded Wilbe, a venture fund and platform for scientists and engineers who want to build companies from their research[2][4]. HSBC Innovation Banking reports that Wilbe was founded in 2020 and that it gives scientists tools, community, lab space and capital to move from idea to company in as little as seven days[4]. In December 2020 she appeared on the Forward Thinking Founders podcast, whose episode notes describe Wilbe as a home for entrepreneurial scientists that educates, supports and invests in scientists working on climate, health and security[5].
By July 2022, when Thapar and her co-founder Ale Maiano spoke at CERN's IdeaSquare, Wilbe supported a community of more than 120 researchers from institutions including the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, the University of Oxford, the Francis Crick Institute and the Max Planck Society[6]. The CERN event page said their work spanned renewable energy, novel materials, sustainable computing, genomics and synthetic biology[6].
She is now co-founder, Chief Operating Officer and General Partner of Wilbe[2][3]. In an interview with HSBC Innovation Banking she said Wilbe invests from day zero, typically before a company is incorporated, and meets scientists and engineers through weekly online cohorts called Build Weeks[4]. She described its thesis as empowering scientists to operate as founders so they can solve the challenges that define their generation[4]. She told HSBC that she was most excited about the rise of the scientist-founder, with more researchers leaving institutions to build companies on health span, fertility, energy and material scarcity[4].
Portfolio and lab space
Her 2026 SXSW London biography states that Wilbe has trained more than 1,400 scientists from institutions including MIT, Oxford, Cambridge and Max Planck, and has helped create over $1.3 billion in value[2]. The same biography says Wilbe has backed 23 companies at day zero[2]. Portfolio companies named in Thapar's speaker biographies include Proxima Fusion, which is working on commercial fusion energy, and U-Ploid Bio, which works on age-related infertility[2]. Her 2025 biography also named Apoha, in sensory computing, and ExpressionEdits, in protein therapeutics[1].
In March 2026 Wilbe opened its first dedicated lab facility, in The WestWorks building at White City Place in London[7]. Tech.eu reported that the site supports 10 to 15 companies and up to 80 people, with wet labs, offices and meeting rooms for companies from pre-seed to Series B[7]. Wilbe said it plans further hubs in Zurich, Berlin, San Francisco and Austin, and a second London site focused on robotics[7].
Speaking and board roles
Thapar spoke at SXSW London in 2025, in the Venture Spotlight Final session[1]. At SXSW London 2026 she presented a session on 3 June titled Wilbe's Rising Stars in Deep Tech[2]. She also spoke on fusion innovation, growth and returns at the FusionX Innovation 2025 event[3].
She sits on the board of the travel company Collette and previously sat on the board of STEM from Dance, a New York organisation[2][3].
Known for
- Co-founding the scientist-focused venture firm Wilbe
- Leading new products at IBM Watson
- Wilbe's Build Weeks programme for scientist founders
Sources
- SXSW London 2025: Devika Thapar speaker page — checked 6 Nov 2026
- SXSW London 2026: Devika Thapar speaker page — checked 6 Nov 2026
- FusionX Innovation 2025: Devika Thapar speaker page — checked 6 Nov 2026
- HSBC Innovation Banking: Interviewing the innovation economy's investors: Wilbe Capital — checked 6 Nov 2026
- Forward Thinking Founders podcast: episode 460, Devika Thapar (Wilbe), December 2020 — checked 6 Nov 2026
- CERN Indico: Wilbe @ CERN, July 2022 — checked 6 Nov 2026
- Tech.eu: Wilbe opens White City lab in London, March 2026 — checked 6 Nov 2026