Cultivated meat brand, replicating the taste and texture of conventional meat with 400 consumer trials so far. Cultivated meat is integrated with food-safe ingredients to improve affordability and scalability vs. a pure cell grown process. The plan is to distribute directly to consumers as well as manufacturers, retailers and restaurants. Future avenues include cultivated seafood and petfood. ₹2CR pre-seed round. Founders: Kamalnayan (Institute of Chemical Technology, '23) worked briefly at Abryl Laboratories (manufacturer of liquid vials) and has been President of nonprofit The Mumbai Smart Protein Project. Founded in Jul 2023. Comps are global: GOOD Meat, Upside Foods.

BioTech startup developing non-microplastic sustainable biopolymers, as an alternative to specialty polymers and ingredients. Agricultural waste is converted into biopolymers for use across home care, beauty, nutraceutical and pharma products. This round is towards setting up pilot production facilities and establishing a GTM. ₹18CR (~$2M) seed round. Founders: Shruti (Fergusson College '15) was a research associate in molecular biology for 5 years at NTU Singapore; Pranav (Fergusson College '17) has been researching biopolymers at CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL) in Pune since 2018. Founded in Feb 2024.

Sustainable packaging for fresh produce. The packaging is in the form of plant-based films, that extend shelf life of fruits and vegetables by up to 3x. It is both biodegradable and compostable, with R&D as well as production in Visakhapatnam. Naturally (pun intended), this is a B2B business, working with farmers, exporters and retailers. It has two products, for bulk shipments and for retail. Building both sales and compliance functions in the US and India. Current revenue scale not provided. $1M seed round. Founders Taraka and Venkata built out SBioTech, an aquaculture startup that specializes in probiotics for fish, for seven years. That overlapped with them building MicGene Lab, a state of the art research laboratory in Visakhapatnam. Founded in Aug 2020.

Defence-tech company building quantum-encrypted laser communications and directed energy weapon (DEW) systems. With five years of R&D and field deployments, its communication system aims to send infrared laser beams using a constellation of satellites, enabling ultra-fast and secure data links; while its DEW system is developing weapons for use in anti-drone, anti-UAV and anti-satellite defence. The communication system will require a network of satellites to function across Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) along with geostationary satellites (GEO). $3M seed round.

IoT startup with a RF-mesh communication stack for use in smart meters (for use across water, gas and electricity utilities) and smart-city projects (for example, street lighting). An RF-mesh communication stack is the architecture that enables wireless communication between multiple devices on a local area network using radio frequency signals. RF-mesh systems have lower downtime and maintenance costs versus telecom-based systems. The Indian government has a Smart Meter National Programme in place to replace 250M conventional meters with smart meters. $2M seed round. Founders: Amarjeet was the Founder & CEO of Shrama Technologies (consulting firm for IoT rollouts); Vikas was with Secure Meters for close to twenty years (large scale Indian manufacturer of metering systems). Founded in Apr 2022.

Agentic AI to make off-road vehicles autonomous. Called NeuralPilot, AI agents combine data from cameras, LiDAR, and GPS sensors to equip off-road vehicles with navigation, mission planning and real time monitoring. Works with Neuralbox, its hardware device which can be retrofitted on to any vehicle. $2.4M pre-seed round. Other investors in the round: Saka Ventures, Appreciate Capital, Astir Ventures, IIMA Ventures, SIDBI, Heston Castelino. Founders Mohan and Aditya were respectively Co-Founder & CTO and Head of Robotics and AI Engineering at Flo Mobility (robots for moving materials at construction sites, warehouses and mining operations). Founded in Dec 2023.

AI-native radio frequency satellite infrastructure, through a network of nanosatellites. The goal is to provide clients in industries across maritime, aviation, defence, oil and gas, and weather forecasting low-latency, high precision insights with 6x more data value per dollar, by capturing the entire radio spectrum compared to legacy satellites which are optical only (i.e. only capture images). Space trials are planned by end 2025, using ISRO's launch vehicle, with pilot customers next year. "Images cannot track moving assets like ships or aircraft. Today, companies take four to four-and-a-half hours to reach a decision. We bring that down to under ten minutes". $2.5M pre-seed round. Other investors in the round: Eaglewings Ventures. Founders: Ankit (Kurekshetra Univ.) and Raghav (NIT Jalandhar) started Xovian Research Tech in 2014, a space-tech consulting firm and ecosystem enabler in 2014. They started Xovian Aerospace in 2018.

AI robotics startup for manufacturing automation. The company has an AI vision platform that enables standard industrial robots to perform tasks without manual programming. Its first product, WeldT, uses computer vision to automate welding in manufacturing setups which produce a large variety of products. The tech is being adapted for other applications - painting, gluing, inspection and assembly. "Manufacturing as we know it is already fading. As AI evolves beyond the human form into Physical Intelligence, we are witnessing a once-in-a-century shift, where lean, adaptive, and precise automation will redefine how things are made." Aiming at 80 deployments across 20 customers within the next year. ₹6.5CR pre-seed round. Other investors in the round: Innovation Mission Punjab. Founders: CEO Anubhi (Masters in Automation Engineering from Newcastle University) was an automation specialist at Siemens in the UK for close to five years; CTO Amrit (IIT Delhi) ran his down dev firm prior to Terafac. Founded in 2023.

Algae-powered photo-bioreactors that integrate into building exteriors and containerised micro-farms to capture CO₂, release oxygen and generate commercially valuable biomass including vegan Omega-3 oil and spirulina-based protein. Installed in urban spaces as building panels and street furniture. Each square meter of the company’s BioMimetic Facade captures 52 kg of CO₂ annually and produces 28 kg of algal biomass. The company has a signed LoI with a German developer for an airport decarbonisation project. Research and production is in Coimbatore, while its HQ appears to be in London. Pre-seed round of an undisclosed amount. Founders: CEO Karthika is a Doctoral Research Fellow in Environmental Science from UAE University; CTO Rahul was a technical consultant at Stratema (in Germany); COO Gopakumar is from SBI.

BioTech manufacturing company providing animal-origin-free recombinant proteins. Recombinant proteins are proteins that are artificially produced using genetic engineering techniques, for use cases ranging from pharma manufacturing to cellular agriculture. ₹4CR seed round. The company will use funding to expand its bioreactor capacity and scale up production. Founders: Vipul was a Research Associate at TERI (3 years) and a Senior Scientist at Biocon (2 years); Dr. Jitendra Wagh is also from TERI. Founded in 2019, based in Vadodara.