Published: November 6, 2026
StartupFeed Quick Take
- Venomics AI has raised $2.7 Mn (Rs 25.5 crore) in a pre-seed round.
- Spun out of IISc Bengaluru, it has built a Venom Atlas of 5.6 million transcripts.
- Co-led by Speciale Invest and South Park Commons, the round dates to April 2026.
Venomics AI, a biotech startup spun out of the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru, has raised $2.7 Mn in a pre-seed round.
Inc42 reported the round was co-led by Speciale Invest and South Park Commons. Operators Studio also took part.
The pre-seed itself dates to April 2026, which Venomics AI lists as $2.7 Mn, or about Rs 25.5 crore.
Kartik Sunagar put the pitch plainly.
“Animal venoms represent one of nature’s richest yet least explored sources of potential medicines”
Kartik Sunagar, co-founder and director, Venomics AI. From his statement on the funding, reported by Inc42, November 5, 2026.
Inside Venomics AI and Its Venom Atlas
At its core, Venomics AI looks for medicines hidden in animal venoms. It sequences venom molecules, uses AI to rank the most promising ones, then tests them in the lab.
The Venom Atlas, Venomics AI’s main asset, is a dataset of venom-derived compounds. It maps 5.6 million transcripts and more than 500,000 antimicrobial peptides.
Kartik Sunagar, an evolutionary biologist and professor at the Indian Institute of Science, co-founded Venomics AI and serves as its director. Vinay Prabhu, who holds a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University, is co-founder and chief technology officer.
Sunagar runs the Evolutionary Venomics Lab at the Institute’s Centre for Ecological Sciences. The lab built a synthetic snakebite antibody in 2024 and venom maps in 2025.
The same lab was the first in India to win an Anthropic AI for Science grant. It uses the Claude AI model to sort and label its venom data.
The pre-seed money will go toward growing the Venom Atlas, adding AI and lab-screening capacity, and hiring in venom biology and drug discovery.
India has more than 11,000 biotech startups, and its bioeconomy could reach $300 Bn by 2030.
What this means for you: If you are a deep-science founder sitting on university IP, Venomics AI shows investors will back a pre-seed built on years of academic research. Watch the Venom Atlas and the lab-screening results over the next year, because that data, not the raise, will decide the next round.
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