Supriya is a scientist who has spent over twenty-five years decoding the molecular conversations between the gut and the brain. Work from her laboratory, published in leading peer-reviewed journals, has uncovered novel signals governing metabolism, behavior, and lifespan, with direct implications for cardiometabolic, neurological, and chronic disease states.
A trusted voice in the scientific community, she evaluates research for leading journals, foundations, and governments, and consults for biotechnology and venture capital companies. She is also a Professor at The Scripps Research Institute. Her career has been anchored in the rigorous pursuit of novel biological mechanisms; she now brings that same discipline to CMV to shepherd the most transformative scientific ideas across the gap between discovery and application.
Soumya is a payments and fintech leader whose career has been defined by a single conviction: that access to financial infrastructure is a prerequisite for human agency. From building the payments stack at a neobank from the ground up, to leading embedded payments at Xero, which enables small businesses to manage cashflow across multiple global markets, she has consistently designed financial products that expand access for underserved communities and small businesses. She also founded Finneo, a consultancy that specializes in custom strategies for fintechs to expand their scale and reach.
At CMV, she brings deep expertise in the architecture of financial inclusion as well as a practitioner's understanding of what it actually takes to dismantle economic barriers at scale.
Meera is an entrepreneur and philanthropist with a forty-year track record of building consumer insight and brand strategy into engines of real-world change, from co-founding India's first specialty qualitative research firm, to building Tasty Bite into a globally recognized natural foods brand. In her current work she is investing in and incubating food and agriculture companies across the US, Singapore, and India. She co-founded the MAV Foundation to address hunger and malnutrition, and holds a career-long belief that the food system is one of the most powerful levers for human health and economic equity. Meera is also Co-Founder and CMO of UMA Global Foods and of the CSAW Aqbator family office.
At CMV, she brings this strategic intuition and philanthropic experience to ensure that good ideas find their way to the people and communities they are meant to serve.
Ashok is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who spent over three decades building businesses at the intersection of food, health, and global commerce — most notably co-founding Tasty Bite, which grew into India's largest exporter of prepared foods before being acquired by Mars Foods. He brings a rare combination of startup incubation experience, emerging market expertise, and a long-held belief that what people eat is inseparable from how equitably they live. Ashok co-founded the MAV Foundation to address hunger and malnutrition as well as the CSAW Aqbator family office and UMA Global Foods, where he also serves as Chair.
At CMV, he provides the entrepreneurial and strategic infrastructure to turn bold philanthropic and investment ideas into durable institutions.
Our Values
Bold Vision
We fund ideas that are ambitious, scientifically rigorous and well-grounded.
Translational Impact
We support the movement of ideas from bench to lived experience across disciplines, across sectors, and across the boundaries between academia, industry, and the communities we ultimately serve.
Equity & Access
We want to ensure that the benefits of healthspan, financial and digital progress reach all populations, not just privileged ones.
Lasting Change
We fund durable institutions and long-term initiatives — the kind of steady, compounding work that creates change across generations.
The MAV Foundation
From hunger to healthspan
The Meera and Ashok Vasudevan Foundation (MAVF) was founded in 2016 to address the pervasive twin scourges of hunger and malnutrition in the US. Over the past ten years, MAVF conducted grantmaking activities that spanned more than twenty organizations and foundations.
The MAV Foundation is now going further — to fight a much older and more persistent struggle against poor health and economic inequality. It serves as the philanthropic giving arm of Critical Mass Ventures, funding the researchers, thinkers, and organizations whose work advances CMV's mission of expanding healthspan and reducing economic inequality.
Learn more: mavfoundation.org