Rahul Saxena

Rahul Saxena is the Director of CREATE-X, a Georgia Tech program with the mission to instill entrepreneurial confidence in its students and launch real startups. Since 2014, its launched 700+ startups with a portfolio value over $2.9B. Saxena’s career spans roles as a venture capitalist, startup CEO, entrepreneur, mechatronic design engineer, and published academic researcher.

By the age of 19, Rahul was conducting published research on mechanical heart valves as an undergraduate at Georgia Tech, earning recognition from the FDA. He later received a NATO Fellowship to pursue a European Master’s in Fluid Mechanics, before moving to Silicon Valley as a mechatronic engineer with GeneMachines, a VC-backed genetics instrumentation startup that was later acquired.

After earning his MBA from Emory University in 2005, he joined Seraph Group, a pioneering hybrid angel/VC firm, as its second full-time employee. He was an early-stage VC for 10 years and invested in companies across all industries and served on the Boards of multiple startups that were later acquired by publicly-traded companies. During his tenure at Seraph, Rahul was tapped by the board of a portfolio company to serve as interim CEO, where he turned-around a SaaS business and led it through its acquisition by Tyler Technologies (NYSE: TYL).

This mix of investing and operating experience has given Rahul a powerful vantage point: pattern recognition built from evaluating hundreds of startups, combined with the practical experience of running one. Today, he leverages this background at CREATE-X to mentor the next generation of founders—helping them ensure “the ladder they’re climbing is on the right wall.”

Rahul holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, a European Master’s in Fluid Mechanics, and an MBA from Emory University.