[Funding alert] Biomedical molecular data startup Elucidata raises $5M in pre-Series A round led by IvyCap Ventures

Biomedical molecular data firm Elucidata on Thursday said it has raised $5 million (around Rs 36 crore) in a funding round led by IvyCap Ventures. The pre-Series A funding round also saw participation from Hyperplane Venture Capital and a few angel investors, Elucidata said in a statement.

The funding will enable the startup to capitalise on its position as a leading provider of structured biomedical molecular data to the life sciences industry, it added.

Elucidata plans to use the funding to accelerate product development, expand its US operations, bolster marketing efforts, and continue hiring world-class talent in India.

Commenting on the investment, Vikram Gupta, Founder and Managing Partner, IvyCap Ventures, said,

"In the pharma industry, biomedical data of drug discovery is increasing in diversity and volume at a rapid rate. In this scenario, it gives us immense pleasure to collaborate with a team, which is driven by a vision of drug discovery and pharma R&D."

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Speaking on the funding, Elucidata Co-founder and CEO Abhishek Jha, said, "The strong backing from IvyCap Ventures and Hyperplane would amplify our ability to help our partners improve in their data-driven drug discovery."

Elucidata was founded in 2015 by University of Chicago and MIT graduate Abhishek Jha, IIT Delhi graduate Swetabh Pathak, and Dr Richard Kibbey (MD, PhD) at Yale School of Medicine. The Delhi- and Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup is focussed on developing Polly — a data platform for drug discovery.

"Polly's SaaS offering is well-timed with the rapidly increasing demand for solutions that extend the reach of publicly available and proprietary biomedical data for the age of data science in drug discovery," Abhishek said.

Elucidata launched Polly in April 2019, and now has over 30 partners in industry and academia as its customers.

(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)