In 2015, a small team working out of a Bengaluru incubator 3D-printed India’s first artificial human liver tissue, a lab-grown slab of cells that stayed alive for weeks and behaved, in parts, like the real organ. A decade later, in the year to March 2025, the company behind it, Pandorum Technologies, booked operating revenue of about ₹3.5 crore against a net loss of roughly ₹29.1 crore (Inc42, citing MCA filings). That is the central tension of this business: scientifically it is far ahead of almost anything else in Indian regenerative medicine, and commercially it is still, by its own investors’ description, close to pre-revenue.
The bet its backers are making is that one of Pandorum’s programmes, a bioengineered “Liquid Cornea” called Kuragenx, turns tissue-engineering science into a therapy people pay for. In February 2026 the company closed an $18 million Series B led by Protons Corporate at a reported post-money valuation of about ₹822 crore (around $91 million, as reported by Entrackr). This is a look at how a research project became a funded biotech, what it actually sells today, and why the gap between its valuation and its revenue is the whole story.
Quick facts
| Company | Pandorum Technologies Private Limited (CIN U72200KA2011PTC058650; status Active, RoC Bangalore) |
| Founded | 2011, Bengaluru, incubated at C-CAMP / Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre, Electronic City |
| Founder(s) | Arun Chandru and Dr. Tuhin Bhowmick (CEO), both from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru |
| Businesses | Engineered human tissue models (liver, cornea, lung) for pharma research; regenerative therapeutics, led by Kuragenx “Liquid Cornea” |
| Latest FY revenue | FY25 operating revenue about ₹3.5 crore, up 322.3% YoY (Inc42, MCA filings) |
| Latest FY profit/loss | FY25 net loss about ₹29.1 crore (Inc42, MCA filings) |
| Listed | Private (unlisted); not on any exchange as of September 2026 |
| Last valuation | About ₹822 crore (~$91 million) post-money after the February 2026 Series B (Entrackr) |
| Headcount / CEO | 28 employees as of 1 August 2025 (Tofler); CEO Dr. Tuhin Bhowmick |
What Pandorum does
Pandorum builds living human tissue outside the body. It uses proprietary biomaterials, cell-laden hydrogels and 3D bioprinting to make two kinds of things: engineered tissue models that pharmaceutical companies use to test drugs, and regenerative therapies designed to repair or replace damaged human tissue. Its work spans liver, cornea, lung and neuronal tissue, and its lead clinical asset is Kuragenx, a bioengineered corneal substitute the company markets as a “Liquid Cornea” for people with corneal blindness. The near-term customers are drug developers and research labs; the long-term customers are hospitals and patients, if the therapy pipeline clears clinical trials and regulators.
The origin
Pandorum was founded in 2011 by Arun Chandru and Tuhin Bhowmick, both graduates of the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. Bhowmick holds a PhD from IISc and is an alumnus of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL); Chandru was named to the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 list in 2016. The founding insight was blunt: drug testing on animals is a poor predictor of what happens in a human body, and there was no reliable way to test on functional human tissue at scale. If you could grow human tissue that behaved like the real thing, you could test drugs on it, and eventually you could use engineered tissue to heal people.
The early science was built around bio-mimetic, protein-based hydrogels, essentially a “bio-ink” of proteins, sugars and living cells that could be printed into tissue. In 2015 that work produced the headline result that put the company on the map: India’s first 3D-bioprinted human liver tissue, a lab-grown mini-liver that remained viable for weeks and could be used for drug-toxicity testing without live animals. The company grew up inside India’s deep-tech support system, incubated at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) and the Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre in Electronic City, and supported early on by grants from the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC).
The struggle years
The uncomfortable truth about tissue engineering is that a laboratory breakthrough and a sellable product are separated by years of capital and regulatory work. Pandorum’s liver-tissue achievement in 2015 was globally notable, but a 3D-printed liver model does not, on its own, generate meaningful revenue. The company had to keep raising money to fund research long before it could sell anything at scale, and its financial filings show the cost of that: for the year to March 2024 the company was, in its investors’ words, still in the pre-revenue stage while posting a net loss of about ₹28.2 crore (Entrackr, citing MCA filings).
Two structural pressures defined these years:
- The pivot from research tool to therapeutic. Selling tissue models to labs is a modest business; the value lies in turning the same platform into treatments. Pandorum widened its work from liver models toward corneal, lung and neuronal tissue, and toward regenerative therapy, a far larger prize but one that requires clinical trials and regulatory approvals.
- The long road to first-in-human trials. As of the March 2024 pre-Series B raise, Kuragenx was still working toward first-in-human dosing (targeted for 2025, subject to approvals). A therapy that has not treated a single patient carries no product revenue, only cost, for years.
The turning point
The pivot that reframed Pandorum from an interesting lab into a fundable biotech was Kuragenx. The corneal programme gave the company a lead therapeutic asset with a clear patient population, a regulatory pathway and external validation. In 2023 Kuragenx received US FDA Orphan Drug Designation for Neurotrophic Keratitis, a rare eye disease, a status that signals a credible regulatory route and brings development incentives. On 15 March 2024 the company raised $11 million (about ₹88 crore) in a pre-Series B round specifically to push Kuragenx toward first-in-human studies and to extend the platform beyond the cornea.
The numbers on either side of that shift tell the story. Before the corneal programme matured, Pandorum was a grant-and-angel-funded research company with negligible revenue. After it, the company attracted institutional and strategic capital, closing an $18 million Series B in February 2026 at a reported post-money valuation of about ₹822 crore, up from a reported pre-Series B valuation of roughly ₹351 crore in December 2023 (UnlistedZone research report). A single clinical asset with FDA orphan status did more for the company’s valuation than a decade of tissue-model work.
The money behind it
Pandorum has raised across several rounds over more than a decade, mixing government grants, angel networks and, more recently, strategic and institutional investors. Total capital raised is reported in a range: Entrackr put it at around $43 million at the Series B close, while startup trackers Inc42 and Tracxn list a cumulative figure above $50 million. The main rounds:
- 2017: about ₹23 crore raised (Entrackr).
- 2020: about ₹41 crore raised (Entrackr).
- 15 March 2024, pre-Series B: $11 million (~₹88 crore), backed by Ashish Kacholia, Everest Finance Investment, Acebright Pharma, a syndicate led by Bandana Kankani, and existing backers Sunil Kant Munjal and the Indian Angel Network (PR Newswire).
- February 2026, Series B: $18 million led by Protons Corporate, with Galentic Pharma, Ashish Kacholia, Noblevast Advisory, Avinya Fund and the Burman Family; post-money valuation about ₹822 crore (~$91 million), per Entrackr and Business Wire.
What the key backers changed:
- Indian Angel Network and early angels funded the research-stage years when there was no product revenue to underwrite.
- Ashish Kacholia, the well-known public-markets investor, backed both the 2024 pre-Series B and the 2026 Series B, giving the company a marquee repeat investor.
- Protons Corporate, the Series B lead, and strategic pharma names such as Galentic Pharma and Acebright Pharma tie the company to industry partners relevant to manufacturing and distribution.
Note: an earlier Entrackr report (before the round was upsized) described the Series B as a ₹85 crore (~$10 million) raise at a ₹750 crore valuation; the round closed larger, at $18 million and about ₹822 crore. Where reports differ, both figures are given here.
How it makes money
Pandorum has two revenue logics operating on very different timelines:
- Today, engineered tissue models and services. The company sells or licenses human tissue models (liver and corneal) to pharmaceutical and biotech companies for drug discovery and toxicity testing. This is where its small current revenue sits, about ₹3.5 crore in FY25 (Inc42). It is a real but modest business-to-business line.
- Tomorrow, regenerative therapeutics. The larger intended engine is Kuragenx and follow-on programmes in lung and neuronal tissue, plus exosome-based, disease-modifying therapies flagged at the Series B. None of this generates product revenue yet, because the lead therapy is only entering human trials; value here shows up as intellectual property, orphan-drug designations and future licensing or product sales.
Costs sit almost entirely in research, clinical development and specialised manufacturing. The part people get wrong is treating the current revenue line as the business: it is not. Pandorum is, in effect, a therapeutics developer whose model-testing sales part-fund the lab while the clinical pipeline is built. The margin, if it ever arrives, comes from proprietary regenerative products protected by patents and regulatory exclusivity, not from selling test tissue.
The numbers
Pandorum’s financials are those of a deep-tech company still in its development phase: negligible revenue, steady multi-crore losses funded by equity. Figures below are in ₹ crore. FY24 and FY25 are drawn from Inc42’s and Entrackr’s MCA-based reporting; the FY23 loss is from an UnlistedZone research report and should be read as lower-confidence.
| Financial year | Operating revenue (₹ cr) | Net loss (₹ cr) |
| FY23 (to Mar 2023) | Negligible (pre-revenue) | ~35.2 (UnlistedZone, lower-confidence) |
| FY24 (to Mar 2024) | ~0.8 (about ₹83.5 lakh) | ~28.2 (Entrackr) |
| FY25 (to Mar 2025) | ~3.5 (up 322.3% YoY) | ~29.1 (Inc42) |
Reading the table: revenue rose sharply in percentage terms in FY25 but from a tiny base, so it barely covers a tenth of the year’s loss. Losses have run at roughly ₹28 crore to ₹35 crore a year. The company had 28 employees as of 1 August 2025 (Tofler), authorised capital of about ₹4.7 crore and paid-up capital of about ₹4.65 crore. In short, this is a research-heavy balance sheet where each year’s losses are underwritten by the next funding round.
Where the money comes from
Two splits matter more here than a simple product-versus-service breakdown:
- Funding, not sales, is the primary cash source. With FY25 revenue near ₹3.5 crore against a ~₹29 crore loss, the overwhelming majority of the cash Pandorum deploys comes from equity rounds and grants, not from customers. The February 2026 Series B, at $18 million, is far larger than any single year’s revenue.
- Geography is a forward bet. The Series B proceeds are earmarked to advance clinical programmes, scale manufacturing and expand market access across the United States, Japan and the Middle East. The FDA Orphan Drug Designation for Kuragenx points the commercial strategy at regulated Western and international markets, not only India.
The surprise for a first-time observer is that the celebrated 2015 liver-tissue breakthrough is not the commercial centre of gravity today; the corneal therapy programme is. The liver work built the platform and the reputation; the cornea is what investors are paying for.
The risks
- Clinical and regulatory risk on the lead asset. Kuragenx is only entering human studies. Regenerative therapies can fail in trials for safety or efficacy, and orphan-drug designation speeds a pathway without guaranteeing approval. If Kuragenx stalls, the thesis behind the ₹822 crore valuation weakens sharply, because current revenue cannot support it.
- Cash burn versus revenue. A company losing roughly ₹29 crore a year on about ₹3.5 crore of revenue depends on continued fundraising. Any freeze in biotech funding, or a down round, would force hard choices on programmes and headcount. By one investor-report estimate, positive profit after tax is not modelled until around FY30, meaning years more of losses to fund.
- Manufacturing and market-access execution across three regions. Scaling cell-and-biomaterial manufacturing to clinical and commercial grade is difficult and capital-intensive, and doing it across the US, Japan and the Middle East simultaneously multiplies regulatory and operational complexity for a company of 28 people.
The takeaway
Pandorum is a reminder that in deep science the headline breakthrough and the business are years, and several funding rounds, apart. The 2015 liver print earned attention; it did not earn revenue. What changed the company’s trajectory was narrowing to a single therapeutic with a defined patient population and a regulatory path, Kuragenx, and using that to attract capital patient enough to wait for clinical results. The transferable lesson is that in frontier technology, focus is a fundraising strategy: a company with one credible, well-defined product bet is easier to value, and to back, than one with a portfolio of impressive science and no clear route to a paying customer. Whether that bet pays off will be decided in clinics, not spreadsheets.
Frequently asked questions
What does Pandorum Technologies do?
It engineers living human tissue outside the body. It sells tissue models (liver, cornea) to pharma companies for drug testing and is developing regenerative therapies, led by Kuragenx, a bioengineered “Liquid Cornea” for corneal blindness.
Who founded Pandorum and when?
Arun Chandru and Dr. Tuhin Bhowmick founded it in 2011 in Bengaluru. Both are from the Indian Institute of Science; Bhowmick is the CEO.
How much has Pandorum raised and at what valuation?
It closed an $18 million Series B led by Protons Corporate in February 2026 at a reported post-money valuation of about ₹822 crore (~$91 million). Total capital raised is reported between about $43 million and over $50 million across sources.
Is Pandorum profitable?
No. For FY25 it reported operating revenue of about ₹3.5 crore and a net loss of about ₹29.1 crore (Inc42, MCA filings). It remains in a development stage funded largely by equity.
What is Kuragenx?
Kuragenx is Pandorum’s lead therapeutic, a bioengineered “Liquid Cornea” combining proprietary biomaterials with regenerative nanotherapy to treat corneal blindness. It received US FDA Orphan Drug Designation for Neurotrophic Keratitis in 2023 and is entering first-in-human studies.
Sources
Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics); dollar equivalents shown for reported valuations are as stated by the cited sources.
- Entrackr, “Biotech startup Pandorum Technologies raises $18 Mn in Series B round” (February 2026)
- Entrackr, “Exclusive: Biotech firm Pandorum to raise $10 Mn in Series B” (2026)
- Inc42, “Pandorum Technologies Bags $18 Mn To Scale Advanced Tissue-Repair Therapies” (February 2026)
- Inc42, Pandorum Technologies company financials page (2026)
- Business Wire, “Pandorum Technologies Raises US$18 Million in Series B” (February 2026)
- PR Newswire, “Pandorum Technologies secures USD 11 million investment” (March 2024)
- Tofler and ZaubaCorp, Pandorum Technologies Private Limited company records, CIN U72200KA2011PTC058650 (2025-2026)
- UnlistedZone, Pandorum Technologies investment brief / research report (2026)
- C-CAMP and 3DPrint.com, coverage of India’s first 3D-bioprinted liver tissue (2015)
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