BIRAC AcE Fund — up to ₹7 Crore Venture Capital for Biotech Startups Through Daughter Funds
Venture capital with a biotech mandate
AcE is a fund of funds exclusively for biotech. BIRAC commits up to ₹30 crore, or 30% of the corpus, to each SEBI-registered daughter fund it partners with; the daughter fund raises the rest privately and must invest at least twice BIRAC's contribution into biotech startups and SMEs. By August 2025 the fund had 16 daughter funds, ₹349 crore of investment commitments and ₹1,560 crore of actual investment across 102 startups.
For the startup, this is ordinary venture capital from a fund that is obliged to find life-sciences companies. The ticket is up to ₹7 crore, with a further ₹3.5 crore available as follow-on, on terms negotiated with the fund.
What a daughter fund can offer
| Item | Position |
|---|---|
| Primary ticket | Up to ₹7 crore against equity held by the daughter fund |
| Follow-on | Up to ₹3.5 crore in later rounds |
| Instrument | Equity, CCPS or convertible instruments on the fund's terms |
| Sectors | Healthcare, life sciences, pharma, biopharma, med-tech, diagnostics, industrial biotech, agri-tech, bio-IT and allied |
BIRAC and the funds
BIRAC selects and commits to daughter funds through periodic calls to fund managers. Each daughter fund's investment committee selects startups independently; BIRAC does not approve individual deals.
For the startup
- •Biotech startup or SME registered in India, in one of the listed sub-sectors
- •Investment-ready: validated product, regulatory pathway, credible commercial plan
- •Typically post-SEED or post-LEAP, or with equivalent private funding history
- •A private limited company with a clean cap table
The data room a daughter fund expects
- •Certificate of Incorporation, MoA/AoA, cap table, prior investment agreements and any convertible notes
- •Audited financial statements for all years; current management accounts
- •Three-to-five-year financial model with assumptions
- •Product and clinical or technical validation data; regulatory approvals and timelines
- •IP register, licences and freedom-to-operate opinion
- •Customer contracts, distribution agreements and pipeline
- •Valuation report where a priced round is proposed
- •Statutory compliance: ROC, GST, TDS, labour, biosafety and ethics approvals
Questions founders ask about AcE
No. BIRAC funds the daughter funds; you approach a daughter fund. The list is on BIRAC's AcE Fund page.
No. Daughter funds invest at negotiated, commercial valuations. The public money widens the pool of biotech-focused capital; it does not discount your round.
No, though many AcE-backed startups came through BIG, SEED or LEAP, and that history shortens due diligence.
Yes. BIRAC has run successive calls for daughter funds and, with the ₹2,000 crore BIRAC-RDI allocation announced in May 2026, has more capital to deploy across its instruments.