Startup Deep Dive : Mynvax — a vaccine that survives 100C but still awaits its first approval

A vaccine that survives a dip in 100°C water for 90 minutes and still works sounds like a laboratory party trick, not a business. Mynvax, a biotech spun out of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, has built its entire pitch around that claim — and has done it on disclosed funding of somewhere between $9.8 million and $12.6 million since 2018, depending on which tracker you believe (Tracxn; PitchBook, accessed September 2026).

Nine years after its founding, the company still has no vaccine on the market. Its most recent disclosed revenue, for the year to March 2025, was just ₹3.56 crore — about a third of the ₹10.94 crore (roughly $1.14 million at $1 ≈ ₹96.0) it reported two years earlier (TheCompanyCheck; Entrackr, May 2024). This is the story of what happens between a genuinely clever piece of protein engineering and an actual product: a long, thin, grant-and-angel-funded runway, one big venture round that arrived years late for the pandemic it was built for, and a bet that a “universal” flu vaccine might succeed where the COVID-19 candidate has, so far, stalled in the lab-to-clinic gap.

Quick facts

What they do

Mynvax designs and develops protein-subunit vaccines engineered to survive heat without refrigeration, and to protect against a broader range of virus strains than conventional shots. Its two disclosed programmes are a thermotolerant COVID-19 candidate built around an engineered receptor-binding domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and an influenza candidate that pairs the conserved “stem” region of the virus’s haemagglutinin protein with a recombinant haemagglutinin head, aimed at broader and longer-lasting protection than a seasonal flu shot (mynvax.com/about.html; BioSpectrum India). The intended customers are not individual buyers but public health systems, government immunisation programmes and, eventually, larger vaccine manufacturers who would license or co-develop the technology for manufacture and distribution, particularly in low- and lower-middle-income countries where a “warm” vaccine that skips the cold chain has obvious logistical value (mynvax.com/about.html).

The origin

The founding insight came out of a university lab, not a business plan. Dr Raghavan Varadarajan, a protein chemist with a PhD from Stanford and postdoctoral training at Yale, had spent years at IISc’s Molecular Biophysics Unit — where he has been a faculty member since 1992 — working on protein stabilisation, research that drew funding from the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the US NIH and IAVI, and earned him India’s Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 2002 (mynvax.com/leaders.html). His lab’s specific insight was that the right mutations could make a viral surface protein hold its shape at high temperatures without losing the parts the immune system needs to recognise — in principle, a vaccine that does not need a freezer.

Turning that insight into a company needed someone who had already built and sold one. Dr Gautham Nadig, an IISc PhD in molecular biophysics, had co-founded and run Metahelix Life Sciences, an agricultural biotechnology company later acquired by Rallis, part of the Tata Group, in 2016 (mynvax.com/leaders.html). Varadarajan and Nadig incorporated Mynvax on 5 May 2017, initially to carry the lab’s influenza immunogen-design work toward the clinic, with early support from IISc’s Society for Innovation and Development (SID) and government grant agencies including the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) and the Department of Biotechnology (mynvax.com; YourStory, July 2021).

The struggle years

The years between founding and real institutional capital were long by Indian startup standards. Mynvax’s first outside cheque, from UK-based Greenbank Bio, landed on 7 August 2018 — more than a year after incorporation — and its amount was never disclosed. A second seed investment, from Kotak Mahindra Bank, followed on 30 October 2019 (Tracxn, accessed September 2026). For roughly two years, the company was effectively running on government grants, incubation support and small private cheques, with no priced venture round and no clinical-stage funding to show for it — a familiar, unglamorous stretch for deep-science ventures that most funding databases simply record as a gap.

The COVID-19 pandemic should have been Mynvax’s moment, and in one sense it was: the thermostability pitch was suddenly a matter of urgent public interest. But the company’s Series A, its first real institutional round, was not announced until 20 July 2021 (India Entrepreneur, July 2021) — by which point India had already granted emergency approvals to Covishield, Covaxin, Sputnik V and, later that year, ZyCoV-D. Mynvax’s own COVID-19 candidate was still in mice and hamster studies at the time, with human trials only “planned” for later in 2021 (BioSpectrum India; CSIRO, 2021). The company had the right technology story at the right moment in public attention, and still arrived at the clinic years behind vaccines that were already being administered by the million.

The most recent setback is written into the balance sheet rather than the headlines. Revenue from operations rose 89% to ₹10.94 crore in the year to March 2023 (Entrackr, May 2024) — only for the company’s most recent disclosed figure, for the year to March 2025, to show revenue of just ₹3.56 crore, roughly a third of the FY23 level (TheCompanyCheck, accessed September 2026). Mynvax has not publicly explained the drop, and its FY24 figures were not available in any filing reviewed for this piece.

The turning point

If there is a single hinge event in Mynvax’s history, it is that July 2021 Series A. Before it, the company had survived on government grants (BIRAC, the Department of Biotechnology), IISc incubation support, and two small, largely undisclosed seed cheques since 2018 — enough to keep a lab-scale research programme alive, not enough to run formal toxicology studies or a clinical trial. After it, Mynvax had $4.2 million (about ₹31 crore at the time) in the bank, led by Accel, with LetsVenture, Kotak Investment Advisors, 1Crowd and a group of angel investors also participating (YourStory, July 2021; Accel, July 2021). Accel’s own announcement framed the money as the bridge from “R&D and animal trials stage to the clinical trials stage” (Accel, July 2021) — process development, GMP-grade manufacturing, formal safety and toxicity studies, and the company’s first human trials. It is the difference between a compelling paper and a company with a shot at a regulatory filing.

The money behind it

• 7 August 2018 — Seed: Greenbank Bio (UK) makes Mynvax’s first outside investment; amount undisclosed (Tracxn, accessed September 2026).
• 30 October 2019 — Seed: Kotak Mahindra Bank invests; amount undisclosed (Tracxn, accessed September 2026).
• 20 July 2021 — Series A: $4.2 million (~₹31 crore) led by Accel, with LetsVenture, 1Crowd, Kotak Investment Advisors and angel investors (YourStory; India Entrepreneur; Accel, July 2021).
• 24 May 2024 — Extended Series A: ₹21.63 crore (~$2.6 million) led by Inviga Healthcare Fund (₹15 crore), with Legacy Assets LLP (₹2 crore) and 27 further investors (Entrackr, May 2024).
• Total disclosed to date: reported at $9.82 million across five rounds by Tracxn, and at $12.6 million by PitchBook — the two trackers disagree and neither figure could be independently verified against a single primary filing (both accessed September 2026).
• Post-money valuation: approximately ₹257 crore (~$31 million) after the May 2024 round (Entrackr, May 2024).
• What each backer changed: Accel supplied the first marquee venture name and the capital to move from animal studies to clinical-readiness spend (Accel, July 2021); Kotak returned across both the 2019 seed and the 2021 Series A, giving the company a continuity investor; Inviga Healthcare Fund, a healthcare-focused investor, led the 2024 top-up and became a significant shareholder (Entrackr, May 2024).
• Post-round shareholding (May 2024): Accel ~15.6% (largest external holder); founders Raghavan Varadarajan and Gautham Nadig ~24.7% combined; Kotak Investment and Inviga holding other significant stakes (Entrackr, May 2024).

How it makes money

Mynvax does not yet sell a vaccine, so its “revenue from operations” line in Ministry of Corporate Affairs filings — ₹10.94 crore in FY23, ₹3.56 crore in FY25 — is not product revenue in the ordinary sense (Entrackr, May 2024; TheCompanyCheck, accessed September 2026). Neither the company nor the filings reviewed break the figure down by source, but given that no approved or commercially launched product exists, government and philanthropic grant funding (from bodies such as BIRAC and the Department of Biotechnology) and contract research income are the more likely components, rather than sales (mynvax.com; inference, not company-confirmed). Costs, meanwhile, run toward what any clinical-stage biotech spends on: protein engineering and formulation R&D, animal studies, and increasingly the far more expensive stages of GMP manufacturing scale-up and human trials — the FY23 net loss of ₹6.43 crore against ₹10.94 crore of revenue shows costs already running well ahead of whatever income the company has (Entrackr, May 2024).

The part outsiders tend to get wrong is assuming the company’s business model is “make and sell vaccines” the way a generic-drug maker sells tablets. Mynvax has instead said its plan is to build partnerships with larger vaccine manufacturers and contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs) to take a licensed or co-developed candidate to market, rather than build its own commercial-scale manufacturing and salesforce (India Entrepreneur, July 2021; mynvax.com/about.html). If that plan holds, Mynvax’s eventual margin sits not in per-dose manufacturing economics but in licensing fees, milestone payments or royalties from a manufacturing partner — a model much closer to a platform-technology licensor than to a vaccine producer, and one where a published take rate or fee structure does not yet exist because no licensing deal has been publicly disclosed.

The numbers

FY23 figures are as reported by Entrackr from Mynvax’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs filing (Entrackr, May 2024); the FY25 revenue figure and its 26.0% year-on-year growth rate are as reported by TheCompanyCheck from the company’s most recent filing (TheCompanyCheck, accessed September 2026). No source reviewed disclosed a full FY24 income statement or an FY25 profit-and-loss figure, so those cells are left blank rather than estimated.

Where the money comes from

Mynvax has not published a revenue segment or geography split. The closest equivalent it does disclose is where its capital — not its revenue — originates, and that split is telling in its own right:

• Government and public grants: BIRAC and the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, funded early-stage vaccine design work (mynvax.com; YourStory, July 2021).
• Philanthropic-funded academic research (pre-company): the underlying protein-stabilisation science in Varadarajan’s IISc lab drew funding from the Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, NIH and IAVI before Mynvax existed as a company (mynvax.com/leaders.html).
• Domestic venture capital: Accel (lead, 2021), Kotak Investment Advisors/Kotak Mahindra Bank (2019 and 2021), Inviga Healthcare Fund (lead, 2024), LetsVenture, 1Crowd, Legacy Assets LLP and dozens of individual angel investors (Entrackr, May 2024; Tracxn, accessed September 2026).
• One overseas seed investor: Greenbank Bio, based in the UK, was Mynvax’s first outside cheque in 2018 (Tracxn, accessed September 2026).
• Independent international validation, without funding: Australia’s CSIRO, through its Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness, tested sera from Mynvax-vaccinated mice against SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern and reported consistent neutralisation of the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta strains (CSIRO, 2021).

The surprise is how domestic the money is. A company whose pitch is explicitly global — a vaccine designed for markets that cannot maintain a cold chain — has, on the public record, raised almost all of its capital from Indian investors and Indian government grants, with international involvement so far limited to one small overseas seed cheque and a scientific collaboration rather than an export contract or an overseas licensing deal.

The risks

• No approved product after nine years: as of the sources reviewed, neither the COVID-19 nor the influenza candidate has been reported to have completed pivotal human efficacy trials; the COVID-19 programme was still described as preclinical, with human trials only “planned,” as late as 2021 (BioSpectrum India; CSIRO, 2021). Every additional year without a filed product narrows the commercial window, particularly for the COVID-19 candidate, as the acute pandemic-era urgency that justified the original investment thesis has receded.
• Volatile, non-product revenue: revenue from operations fell from ₹10.94 crore in FY23 to ₹3.56 crore in FY25 (Entrackr, May 2024; TheCompanyCheck, accessed September 2026). A company this reliant on grants and contract income, rather than product sales, is directly exposed to any slowdown in government or philanthropic funding cycles.
• Thin capital base for a capital-intensive category: total disclosed funding of $9.8–12.6 million (Tracxn; PitchBook, accessed September 2026) against a ~$31 million valuation (Entrackr, May 2024) is small relative to the cost of running Phase 2/3 trials and building or securing GMP-scale manufacturing for a vaccine. Mynvax’s own stated route around this — partnering with a larger vaccine manufacturer or CDMO (India Entrepreneur, July 2021) — is not yet backed by any publicly disclosed licensing agreement.

The takeaway

Mynvax’s story is not really about vaccines; it is about the gap that swallows most public-research spin-outs. A university lab can prove a mutation makes a protein survive heat; a company can raise a few million dollars to test that in mice, then hamsters, then, eventually, people. What it cannot easily buy is time, and time is the one resource a pandemic-shaped pitch does not grant twice. The lesson that travels beyond biotech is this: when a startup’s core claim is tied to a moment of public urgency, the money has to arrive as fast as the moment does, or the company ends up building the right thing for a market that has already moved on, and has to find a second reason — in Mynvax’s case, a “universal” flu vaccine — for its own existence.

Frequently asked questions

What does Mynvax make?

Mynvax develops protein-subunit vaccine candidates engineered for thermal stability, including a COVID-19 candidate and a broadly protective influenza vaccine, aimed at reducing dependence on cold-chain storage and distribution (mynvax.com/about.html).

Who founded Mynvax and when?

Mynvax was incorporated on 5 May 2017 in Bengaluru by Dr Raghavan Varadarajan, a Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, and Dr Gautham Nadig, an IISc alumnus and former co-founder of Metahelix Life Sciences (mynvax.com/leaders.html; TheCompanyCheck, accessed September 2026).

How much funding has Mynvax raised?

Reported total funding ranges from $9.82 million (Tracxn) to $12.6 million (PitchBook), raised across a 2018 seed round, a 2019 seed investment, a $4.2 million Series A in July 2021 led by Accel, and a ₹21.63 crore extended Series A in May 2024 led by Inviga Healthcare Fund (Tracxn; PitchBook; Entrackr, May 2024).

Is Mynvax’s vaccine approved or on sale?

No approval or commercial launch was found in any source reviewed as of September 2026. The company’s COVID-19 candidate was in preclinical and early human-trial planning stages as of 2021, and no later public disclosure of completed pivotal trials was located (BioSpectrum India; CSIRO, 2021).

What is Mynvax’s most recent valuation?

Mynvax was valued at approximately ₹257 crore (~$31 million) on a post-money basis after its May 2024 extended Series A round, as reported by Entrackr (Entrackr, May 2024).

Sources

Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).

• YourStory, “Mynvax raises $4.2M in Series A round,” July 2021
• Entrepreneur India, “Mynvax Raises $4.2 Mn Series A Funding,” July 2021
• Accel, “Our investment in Mynvax,” July 2021
• BioSpectrum India, “Biotech startup Mynvax offers ‘warm vaccine’ for COVID-19,” 2021
• CSIRO, “Pre-clinical evaluation of ‘heat-tolerant’ COVID-19 vaccine, Mynvax,” 2021
• Entrackr, “Exclusive: Accel-backed biotech startup Mynvax raises fresh funds,” May 2024
• Mynvax official website (mynvax.com) — About Us, Leaders and News pages, accessed September 2026
• TheCompanyCheck, “Mynvax Private Limited,” accessed September 2026
• Tofler, “Mynvax Private Limited Financials,” accessed September 2026
• Tracxn, “Mynvax — Company Profile and Funding Rounds,” accessed September 2026
• PitchBook, “Mynvax Company Profile: Valuation, Funding & Investors,” accessed September 2026
• CB Insights, “Mynvax Financials,” accessed September 2026
• Biocon Biologics, “Arun Chandavarkar, Board of Directors,” accessed September 2026
• Crunchbase, “Gautam Nadig — Founder @ Mynvax,” accessed September 2026

Found an error? Write to us and we’ll correct it in the open, dated, on the piece.