AI-powered drug discovery startup Peptris has raised ₹70 Cr ($7.7 Mn) in a Series A funding round co-led by IAN Alpha Fund and Speciale Invest. Besides, investors like Tenacity Ventures and BYT Ventures also participated in the round.
The startup plans on utilising the fresh capital to bolster its clinical readiness while also expanding its pipeline over the next two years. The startup is planning to launch several new Novel Chemical Entities (NCE) programmes along with multiple drug repurposing and rescue initiatives that could potentially revive shelved clinical-stage drugs.
On the operational front, Peptris is looking to expand its team size by hiring across functions like biology, chemistry, data science and AI functions and setting up dedicated business development units in the US and Europe.
Founded in 2019 by Narayanan Venkatasubramanian, Shridhar Narayanan, Anand Budni and Amit Mahajan, Peptris has developed a platform that leverages AI/ML to enhance efficiencies across the drug discovery phase. The proprietary AI platform integrates unsupervised learning and generative AI to design optimised molecules suitable for drug use.
The startup claims that its platform has been used to discover NCEs, repurpose or reposition approved drugs and further rescue molecules that have proven clinically safe. It has a pipeline of preclinical assets that have been discovered, validated in “vitro and in vivo” disease models.
Peptris operates virtually, focusing on AI-driven discovery while outsourcing wet lab work to CROs and biotech partners. Its revenue comes from licensing deals, milestone payments and royalties, with partnerships across academia, biotech and pharma companies and rare disease organisations.
“Drug discovery is becoming economically unsustainable, with expenses nearly doubling every nine years and pre-clinical development swallowing disproportionate time and capital. The use of AI for molecule discovery, which re-engineers the economics of early drug discovery by enabling faster decisions, reducing costs, and significantly accelerating go-to-market timelines, really excited us. At its core, this investment is about serving humanity better,” IAN Alpha Fund’s managing partner Rajnish Kapur said.
With this round, the biotech startup’s total funding exceeds over ₹78 Cr, including a $1 Mn pre-seed round back in 2023 which was also led by Speciale Invest.
The funding round comes at a time when the biotech startup segment has come into focus, in line with the government’s push. In her ninth consecutive budget announcement earlier this month, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the “Biopharma SHAKTI” scheme with a budget outlay of ₹10,000 Cr for five years. The program aims to bolster research, manufacturing, and innovation in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sector, a sector that Peptris is looking to tap into.
Besides, union minister Jitendra Singh announced the first national call for the BIRAC–RDI Fund a few days back, marking a major push to scale high-impact biotechnology innovations under the Centre’s ₹1 Lakh Cr RDI initiative.
Singh noted that India has moved from policy hesitation to policy acceleration in biotech. This has led to a notable expansion of the biotech startup ecosystem, from around 50 biotech startups in 2014 to more than 11,000 today.
Amid this sprawling biotech ecosystem, Peptris competes with other AI-led drug discovery startups like ImmunitoAI, Boltzmann, Medvolt, and AarogyaAI.
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