Pulakesh Mukherjee

Pulakesh Mukherjee joined BASF Venture Capital as Investment Manager in October 2009 and is based in Silicon Valley, California, USA. He now serves as a Principal.

He began his career in 2002 in Polymer Research at BASF in Germany where he was responsible for development and up-scaling of novel water based polymers. After his stint in research he joined the Intermediates Division and was delegated to India where he was head of New Business Development of the Intermediates Division as well as responsible for marketing and sales of specialty chemicals for the Pharmaceutical Industry. He also led the Pharma Industry Target Group at BASF India, a platform created to bring in synergies amongst different divisions of BASF servicing the pharmaceutical industry.

Before joining BASF he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Basel, Switzerland working on asymmetric organic synthesis. He received his PhD from Stanford University, USA, in the area of Bio-inorganic Chemistry. He has published in peer-reviewed journals like Science and Journal of American Chemical Society and has co-authored more than 20 patents.