Vaibhav Gupta
🇮🇳India· Mumbai
IIT Delhi Chemical Engineering student, one half of Team Guava, the only Indian team to win the WorldQuant IQC outright, taking home $100K split between them.
The 2023 IQC final ran in the Bahamas: twelve teams flown in from Canada, China, Hungary, India, Malaysia, the UK, the US, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan and Vietnam. Team Guava, Vaibhav Gupta and Nihar Patel, both undergrads at IIT Delhi, won. The pair had cleared 30,000-plus contestants from 100+ countries in earlier stages, and the prize was over $100,000 cash split between the two. Vaibhav was studying Chemical Engineering as a major with a minor in Computer Science, an unusual quant pipeline; Nihar was on the more conventional Mathematics and Computing track.
Vaibhav joined WorldQuant as a Researcher in March 2023, months before the Bahamas final, and has stayed there since, building "value-adding alphas" through what WQ calls the BRAIN Consultancy Program. His IIT Delhi LinkedIn post on the win used the hashtags #quantitativefinance #iqc #worldquant #teamguava and pulled 63 comments from the alum network. WorldQuant published an official "2023 IQC Finalist Spotlight" page for him, one of the rare cases where the firm has produced a dedicated bio page for a winner, which makes the editorial trail unusually rich for an IQC alumnus.
He is part of the longest unbroken Indian streak in IQC history: 2023 outright, 2024 in finals, 2025 second place. Beyond LinkedIn and the WorldQuant career page, Vaibhav doesn't run a public-content presence, no Twitter, no YouTube, no TradingView. The story is the work, not the brand.
Interview
Most IQC winners come from math, statistics, pure finance. You studied Chemical Engineering at IIT Delhi with a CS minor. How did that shape the way you think about building alphas?
Alphas are hidden inside data. By utilizing diverse fields, datasets, and implementing unique ideas, I can seek to generate high-quality signals.
Team Guava beat 30,000-plus contestants from over 100 countries. Twelve teams flew to the Bahamas for the live final in front of WorldQuant's senior leadership. One team walked out as champions. What did that moment actually mean to you?
Being recognized by esteemed individuals, whom I have always aspired to emulate, feels truly special.
Nine months of work. Three stages. A live challenge in the Bahamas. What is the single most important lesson the competition taught you?
I have learned to stick to the basics and understand the fine line between complexity and unnecessary complication.
Most IQC champions go straight into WorldQuant internships. You took a different path, joining the BRAIN Consultancy Program to continue building and researching independently. How did the IQC experience lead you there?
Deciding to participate in the IQC was one of the best decisions I ever made. It has accelerated my learning, boosted my confidence, and provided an invaluable experience.
IQC 2023 had 30,000 participants. IQC 2025 had 80,000. IQC 2026 has 156,000. Engineering departments, economics faculties, computer science labs — the field is expanding far beyond traditional finance. Where does quant research go from here?
We have only scratched the surface.
What are you focused on these days?
I am a full time Quant Researcher at WorldQuant in their Mumbai office.
With IQC 2026 at 156,000 participants, will you be competing again?
No, I am not participating, considering I already won in IQC 2023.