Hyderabad-based therapeutics startup Helex has raised $3.5 million in a seed round led by pi Ventures, with participation from Bluehill Capital, SOSV, and a syndicate of global investors.
The company plans to use the funds to accelerate its lead program targeting Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD) and strengthen its AI-driven platform focused on developing next-generation precision treatments for genetic kidney disorders.
Founded in 2021 by Poulami Chaudhuri, Rohini Kalvakuntla, and Anirudh Nishtala, Helex operates at the intersection of gene therapy, artificial intelligence, and precision medicine.
The company was incubated at ASPIRE-BioNEST, University of Hyderabad, and has raised more than $6 million in total funding.
Helex’s proprietary platform combines a lipid nanoparticle (LNP)-based drug delivery system with AI-powered drug design, enabling the creation of programmable, non-viral genetic therapeutics that deliver disease-specific payloads directly to kidney cells.
Powered by deep learning models and genomic data, Helex integrates bioinformatics, high-throughput sequencing, and gene-edited target cell data to design and validate precise gRNA for renal conditions.
The company’s lead candidate focuses on ADPKD, a progressive hereditary disorder that affects over 12 million individuals globally and around 5% of chronic kidney disease patients in India.
Helex aims to develop a single-dose, gene-editing-based therapy that could potentially halt or significantly slow disease progression.
