Merak Ventures, a sector-agnostic early-stage, B2B venture capital (VC) firm, has announced a new investment in Atomgrid, an R&D-first platform for contract development, manufacturing, and sourcing of Specialty Chemicals, used across sectors such as pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, agriculture etc.

Merak Ventures led the Rs 10 crore seed round, in which other venture firms including Dexter Ventures, Upsparks, Point One Capital and the founders of UniCards (Nitin Gupta and Prateek Jindal) also participated. This marks Merak’s third significant investment of the year.

Bengaluru-based startup Atomgrid is co-founded by IIT-BHU alumni Lakshit Bansal, Siddharth Gupta, and Pratik Chowdhury. Through interactions with over 250 manufacturers, the co-founders identified significant challenges Indian manufacturers face, including limited access to research and development resources, global distribution networks, efficient raw material sourcing, and technology-driven solutions. These factors contribute to suboptimal capacity utilisation and a restricted presence in the export market.

The investment from Merak Ventures will enable Atomgrid to expand its in-house R&D infrastructure, increase global outreach, build a supply chain tech platform, and hire teams across Business Development, R&D, and fulfilment functions.