• Startup Pulse
    altM raises $10.3 million in a Series A round led by Rainmatter by Zerodha and Mela Ventures, with Omnivore, Theia Ventures, Aureolis Ventures, Spectrum Impact and strategic angel investors participating. Venomics AI raises $2.7 million in a pre-seed round co-led by Speciale Invest and South Park Commons, with Operators Studio participating. EloElo Group raises $80 million in a Series C round led by Hornbill Capital and NBCUniversal, with MIT Investment Co. and existing investors participating. Peppermint Robotics raises ₹100 crore (approximately $10.5 million) in a Pre-Series B round led by pi Ventures and Crane Venture Partners, with Asiana Fund participating. Traversal raises $120 million in a Series B round at a $1 billion valuation, led by Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint and Khosla Ventures, with Sequoia Capital, Battery Ventures and Amex Ventures participating. GIVA raises over $100 million in a round led by Multiples Alternate Asset Management. The Croffle Guys raises ₹14 crore in a round led by V3 Ventures, with N.A.N Partners participating. Solgram raises over $1 million in a pre-seed round led by DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital, with Kapil Chopra participating. Sachin Tendulkar makes a strategic investment in Metasports Interactive, the company behind Hitwicket. The amount was not disclosed. Hyeglo Beauty raises ₹7 crore in a round led by Sauce, with Giga Capital, Consumer Collective, Reckitt's Arjun Purkayastha and The Patient Capital participating. altM raises $10.3 million in a Series A round led by Rainmatter by Zerodha and Mela Ventures, with Omnivore, Theia Ventures, Aureolis Ventures, Spectrum Impact and strategic angel investors participating. Venomics AI raises $2.7 million in a pre-seed round co-led by Speciale Invest and South Park Commons, with Operators Studio participating. EloElo Group raises $80 million in a Series C round led by Hornbill Capital and NBCUniversal, with MIT Investment Co. and existing investors participating. Peppermint Robotics raises ₹100 crore (approximately $10.5 million) in a Pre-Series B round led by pi Ventures and Crane Venture Partners, with Asiana Fund participating. Traversal raises $120 million in a Series B round at a $1 billion valuation, led by Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint and Khosla Ventures, with Sequoia Capital, Battery Ventures and Amex Ventures participating. GIVA raises over $100 million in a round led by Multiples Alternate Asset Management. The Croffle Guys raises ₹14 crore in a round led by V3 Ventures, with N.A.N Partners participating. Solgram raises over $1 million in a pre-seed round led by DSG Consumer Partners and Saama Capital, with Kapil Chopra participating. Sachin Tendulkar makes a strategic investment in Metasports Interactive, the company behind Hitwicket. The amount was not disclosed. Hyeglo Beauty raises ₹7 crore in a round led by Sauce, with Giga Capital, Consumer Collective, Reckitt's Arjun Purkayastha and The Patient Capital participating.
  • K-Dense Beta Outperforms GPT-5 in Bioinformatics Benchmark Tests

    K-Dense Beta by Biostate AI

    Palo Alto, CA: Biostate AI today announced the launch of K-Dense Beta, a multi-agent AI research system that compresses biological research cycles from years to days.

    The K-Dense Beta platform was validated through a Harvard Medical School study on aging, demonstrating its ability to accelerate discovery while maintaining scientific accuracy.

    Transforming Biological Discovery

    The K-Dense Beta system represents a major advancement over task-specific AI tools by executing complete research cycles. It coordinates multiple specialized agents that:

    • Design and plan experiments
    • Review scientific literature
    • Execute code in secure sandboxes
    • Generate publication-ready reports

    Unlike traditional generative AI, K-Dense Beta eliminates hallucinations through independent cross-checking, feedback loops, and full traceability of research decisions.

    Also Read: Biostate AI Secures Global Collaborations to Advance RNA-Based Precision Medicine

    Ashwin Gopinath, Co-founder and CTO of Biostate AI, said: “We have created an AI scientist that can operate continuously, dramatically accelerating discovery while upholding rigorous scientific standards.”

    Harvard Validation of K-Dense Beta

    The system was validated in collaboration with Professor David Sinclair, Co-Director of the Paul F Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School.

    K-Dense Beta analyzed over 600,000 transcriptomic profiles to build an aging clock, narrowing the dataset to 60,000 high-quality samples and 5,000 genes. The study revealed that different gene sets influence biological age at various life stages, proving aging is a sequence of distinct biological programs.

    “K-Dense enabled us to complete a study in weeks that normally requires years,” said Professor Sinclair. “It also provided reliability measures for predictions – something prior AI systems lacked.”

    The findings are available as a bioRxiv preprint and are under peer review.

    Technical Strength

    Built on Google Cloud’s Gemini 2.5 Pro, K-Dense Beta integrates standard bioinformatics pipelines, curated databases, AlphaFold, MedGemma, and can connect modularly to external tools via the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

    Also Read: UDENYCA Acquired by Intas Pharmaceuticals and Accord BioPharma in Biosimilar Expansion

    On BixBench, the industry’s leading bioinformatics benchmark, K-Dense Beta achieved 29.2% accuracy, outperforming GPT-5 (22.9%), GPT-4o (18%), and Claude 3.5 Sonnet (18%).

    Google Cloud’s Bikram Singh Bedi noted: “Biostate’s multi-agent approach shows how advanced models like Gemini 2.5 Pro can accelerate genuine scientific discovery.”

    Funding and Expansion

    Earlier this year, Biostate AI raised $12 million in Series A funding led by Accel, with prior backing from leaders at Anthropic, Twist Bioscience, and 10x Genomics.

    The company has since advanced K-Dense Beta development and initiated collaborations with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and partners in China and India.

    Currently, K-Dense Beta is available to select design partners, with broader access planned later in 2025. Organizations can request details at k-dense.ai
    .

    Author

    • Salil Urunkar

      Salil Urunkar is a senior journalist and the editorial mind behind Sahyadri Startups. With years of experience covering Pune’s entrepreneurial rise, he’s passionate about telling the real stories of founders, disruptors, and game-changers.

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