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Impact investment firm Omnivore is considering investments in animal health, bioinformatics, precision fermentation, and another deal in material science, a top official said. The firm plans to close between four and six deals this year, of which two will be in the life sciences space. “I would love to do a life sciences deal related to animal science.
It's a sector ripe for disruption and has great challenges. The sector has strong economics and good margins,” said Mark Kahn, managing partner at Omnivore. The firm is also planning a couple of exits this year from its second fund.
Omnivore is currently in talks with some of the founders of its portfolio companies and bankers about creating an exit strategy. “This year, we expect to try to get a decent chunk of our capital back,” said Abhilash Sethi, the firm's investment director. Omnivore focuses on agritech, foodtech and climate-smart investing.
Founded by Kahn and Jinesh Shah, the firm has been around since 2010. Since then, Omnivore has funded over 40 companies and currently manages $295 million across two active funds. Read more: MoEngage taps Avendus to raise up to $180 million from new and existing backers In FY25, the firm made nine investments, four of which were new in companies like Sid's Farm, Scimplify, Cornext, and Two Point O Capital.
The rest were follow-on investments. Currently, the firm has set its sights on broadening the network of deep science startups while also deepening its investment pipeline. As it stands, several startups in the deep-science sector spend a few years being incubated in government-run accelerators at institutions like the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), the Bangalore Bioinnovation Center, Venture Center in Pune, and the IKP Knowledge Park in Hyderabad.
Up and running These places allow startups to access non-dilutive capital, such as research grants, to build a viable product and find a path to monetisation. When these startups start looking to raise money, they've been around for three to five years. “By the time you're investing, you're doing diligence on something real, with real commercial traction, real pilots, and real IP,” Kahn said.
However, private capital remains missing. That's despite the sector raising $1.9 billion between 2020 and 2024, according to a joint report by Omnivore, Nucleate, a non-profit for biotech leaders and IndieBio, a New York-based deeptech fund.
Even then, it’s not enough since the sector is still playing catch up when it comes to its funding environment. “What is missing now is a pre-seed cheque writer that is comfortable coming in very, very early. Maybe not alongside the earliest grants given by the government, but when it starts moving towards commercialisation,” said Kahn.
Biopharma and medical biotech startups have been the primary funding recipients in the last five years, according to the report. Generalist funds saw significant participation, indicating that the space is seeing growing interest from VCs who haven't invested in it previously. However, the deep science sector needs an inflection point for meaningful and consistent investments in space.
A couple of things need to happen for that. One is that global venture capital must look beyond the US and Israel, where the life sciences sector is robust. “We need to get India on the global radar for life sciences,” said Kahn.
India’s biotech system Secondly, the sector needs to see a huge exit event to accelerate investment from both global and Indian VCs. “When people see that, it will unlock a lot of capital in the sector and accelerate how much capital comes in. Right now is the educational part of the story,” Kahn said.
Read more: Edtech firm Lido's founder Sahil Sheth onto his next act, but the last one is far from over This is why Omnivore has partnered with Nucleate and IndieBio to launch Biowave, a yearly event to accelerate investment and innovation in India's biotech ecosystem. “I think there's a significant capital unlock just through awareness,” Kahn said, emphasising that he hopes that through the event, the deep science sector will finally see a lot more growth stage funding, as opposed to just seed. Startups in the sector saw only 61 Series-A rounds, 34 Series-B rounds, and only 13 beyond that between 2020 and 2024, according to the joint report.
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