Mandrake Bio, a foundational protein design startup building programmable gene-editing enzymes, has raised approximately Rs 16 crore in pre-seed funding. The round was co-led by Activate and Antler, with participation from Spectrum Impact and DeVC. Angel investors from the AI and biotech ecosystem joined the round, including Dr Vijay Chandru, Paras Chopra, Sanjiv Rangrass, and Vatsal Dusad.
Founded in 2025 by Tanay Lohia and Dr Kutubuddin Molla, Mandrake Bio engineers gene editors from scratch rather than modifying naturally occurring enzymes. The platform combines generative AI, first-principles biophysics, and wet-lab validation to design editors with the compactness, precision, and dynamic control that applications in agriculture and medicine demand.
For global biotech buyers and partners watching the India–Gulf corridor, Mandrake represents a shift from incremental discovery to generative design in a domain where the tools have largely been fixed by nature. A startup producing novel protein structures—not tweaking existing ones—changes the sourcing conversation for gene-editing IP coming out of this region.
"We've always been limited by the tools we discovered in nature. At Mandrake, we use generative AI & Biophysics to design proteins from scratch instead – so that improving a crop needn't take a decade, and a transformative therapy needn't cost millions. Our designs already stand among the best in the world, and they're coming out of India. This is the chapter where we start writing biology, not just reading it," said Tanay Lohia, Founder & CEO, Mandrake Bio.
"The next generation of AI breakthroughs won't come from software alone – they'll come from AI transforming disciplines like biology, chemistry, and materials science. We believe India has the talent to build companies at that frontier. Mandrake is a great example: combining world-class AI with deep biological science to create entirely new gene editing tools from first principles. We're excited to partner with Tanay, Kutubuddin, and the team as they build a global company from India," said Pratyush Choudhury, Co-Founder, Activate.
The fresh capital will fund platform development, expansion of the core research team across AI and biophysics, and scaled wet-lab validation of designed editors for agricultural and medical applications.
