In a pre-seed funding round co-led by Activate and Antler, with participation from Spectrum Impact and DeVC, foundational protein design firm Mandrake Bio has raised about Rs 16 crore. Angel investors Vijay Chandru, Paras Chopra, Sanjiv Rangrass, and Vatsal Du also contributed to the round.
According to a news statement from Mandrake Bio, the money raised will be used to develop the company’s AI-based protein design platform, grow its biophysics and AI research team, and scale wet lab validation of its gene editing enzymes for use in agriculture and medicine.
Tanay Lohia and Kutubuddin Molla founded Mandrake Bio in March 2025 with the goal of creating programmable gene editing enzymes through wet lab validation, biophysics, and generative AI. The business wants to create small, accurate enzymes for use in health and agriculture.
The company claims that their method can support the discovery of treatments for genetic illnesses and shorten the time needed to create new crop types through gene editing.
Mandrake Bio uses generative AI and structural biology to create unique gene editing enzymes from scratch, in contrast to traditional methods that rely on naturally occurring gene editing systems like CRISPR Cas9. It intends to grant licenses for these enzymes to medicinal developers and seed companies.
