Building Pharma Labs In Space, Zerodha’s Bland FY26 & More

The Race To Make Drugs In Space

For decades, microgravity research was largely about discovering how matter behaved beyond Earth. Now, Indian startups are exploring whether medicines and advanced materials can be made up in the sky. So, can space manufacturing become India’s next deeptech frontier?

Manufacturing In Space: Microgravity in low-Earth orbit removes much of the convection, sedimentation and buoyancy that shape experiments on Earth. This allows researchers to grow more uniform protein crystals, study biological processes and develop materials with properties that are difficult to reproduce on the ground. 

As such, focus is now shifting from what scientists can observe in orbit to what companies can manufacture there.

India’s Orbital Pharma Bet: A slew of new spacetech startups are making a beeline for the orbit. Serendipity recently flight-tested a satellite prototype that housed an autonomous pharma factory, while Ethereal is developing a reusable upper stage that can host microgravity experiments. AnduraX is also building reusable spaceplanes for pharma companies and Akashalabdhi is constructing modular inflatable LEO habitats. 

A Market Takes Shape: The near-term commercial opportunity is likely to centre on drug crystallisation and protein folding. While global companies, such as Merck and Redwire, are already testing the model, India is still catching up with its overseas peers. As such, IN-SPACe, the Technology Adoption Fund and ISRO’s proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Station could help move experiments from labs into repeatable missions.

The Road Ahead: Despite growing momentum, structural hurdles remain. Indian microgravity startups face steep launch costs, limited access to orbital platforms and lengthy validation cycles. Regulatory approvals, payload recovery, mission reliability and specialised talent add further complexity. 

As low Earth orbit transitions into a manufacturing zone, can Indian startups turn microgravity into a viable factory floor for the next generation of medicines? Let’s find out…

From The Editor’s Desk

Zerodha’s Bland FY26 Show

• The stock broking giant’s business growth remained strained as net profit grew a meagre 1.2% YoY to ₹4,283 Cr in FY26. Without disclosing exact numbers, Zerodha hinted that its FY26 operating revenue was similar to the top line it recorded in FY25. 
• Despite revenue holding steady, Zerodha’s brokerage income and market share (of active clients) took a hit in FY26. It attributed the subdued performance to the rebate on transaction charges going away and the end of the bull market. 
• Meanwhile, Zerodha’s margin trading facility book grew to around ₹9,000 Cr in FY26, with customers borrowing around ₹6,000 Cr. Kamath said earnings from this business are now offsetting the zero revenue from transaction charges rebate. 

Runable Nets $21 Mn

• The AI agent platform has raised around ₹200 Cr in its Series A round co-led by Susquehanna and Nexus Venture Partners to bolster its product portfolio, enhance its tech stack and ramp up hiring. 
• Founded in 2025, Runable’s AI agent helps small businesses build, manage and grow their operations. This comes as the startup scaled to $2 Mn in ARR within three weeks and caters to 1.5 Mn users.
• The fundraise comes amid growing investor interest in startups using AI agents to automate operations and software development. At the heart of all this is the broader Indian AI ecosystem, which is projected to become a $126 Bn opportunity by 2030. 

Pernia Sets IPO Price Band

• Purple Style Labs has set a price band of ₹546 to ₹575 per share for its upcoming ₹680 Cr IPO. At the upper end of the price band, the omnichannel fashion platform will command a post-issue market capitalisation of nearly ₹4,604 Cr.
• The public issue will open for subscription on August 31 and will close three days later. Pernia Pop Up Shop’s IPO consists entirely of a fresh issue of shares worth ₹680 Cr, with no offer for sale component.
• Founded in 2015, Purple Style Labs operates an omnichannel fashion platform that operates 15 experience centres. Its net loss expanded to ₹285.4 Cr in FY26, while operating revenue rose about 14% YoY to ₹557.8 Cr.

Honasa Skips Fluence Acquisition

• The listed D2C major has called off its proposed ₹135 Cr acquisition of a 58% stake in the nutraceuticals startup. Honasa said that the deal failed to materialise due to non-fulfilment of undisclosed closing conditions under the share purchase agreement. 
• Despite the deal falling through, Honasa said that it plans to double down on the nutraceuticals space. It plans to continue evaluating organic and inorganic opportunities to build a consumer-focused business in the category. 
• The proposed acquisition was part of the listed giant’s “Honasa 3.0” strategy, under which it aims to double its revenue to over ₹5,500 Cr by FY31, improve EBITDA margin to 15% and scale its offline distribution network to 3 Lakh outlets.

boAt’s FY26 Profit Run

• The consumer electronics startup’s profit rose 38% YoY to ₹84.5 Cr in FY26 despite operating revenue declining nearly 5% YoY to ₹2,931 Cr. The brand attributed the improvement in bottom line to measures across sourcing and cost efficiency.
• boAt’s wearables segment also turned profitable in FY26, posting a profit of about ₹7 Cr. Meanwhile, the other segment, which includes charging solutions, cables and gaming products, saw its segment profit more than triple YoY to ₹46 Cr.
• The audio brand now plans to build new growth engines across international markets and adjacent consumer technology categories, such as projectors and personal grooming. The numbers come as boAt is said to have already deferred its ₹1,500 Cr IPO.

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

How Trinzz Is Trying To Make Medical AI More Reliable

Medical AI systems can fail if the underlying clinical data is inconsistent, poorly-labelled or difficult to audit. Trinzz is addressing this hidden bottleneck with an AI platform that combines automated annotation and traceability for deployment-ready healthcare datasets.

Clinical Grade Data: Founded in 2025, Trinzz converts raw, multimodal clinical data into validated datasets for hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and healthcare AI developers. Its platform supports radiology, pathology, ultrasound, microscopy, endoscopy and clinical documents, helping teams prepare medical data for model training, evaluation and deployment.

The Reliability Layer: Trinzz combines AI-assisted annotation with expert-in-the-loop workflows. It measures agreement between medical reviewers, identifies inconsistencies, captures reviewer accountability and generates audit trails and evidence packs. Beyond labelling. It also helps organisations ingest and normalise data, enforce quality gates, certify dataset releases and create regulatory-ready documentation. 

A Growing Opportunity: Trinzz generates revenues via enterprise subscriptions, reliability assessments and data-validation services. Headquartered in the US, the startup is currently running paid pilots with seven enterprise customers and is eyeing a piece of the global healthcare AI market, which is projected to cross $505.6 Bn by 2033. So, can Trinzz become the reliability layer behind medical AI?

Infographic Of The Day

Sanjeev Bikhchandani has built one of India’s most interesting startup portfolios with 100 bets spanning consumer, fintech, SaaS, logistics, healthcare and more. Here’s what the “Godfather” of the Indian startup ecosystem has so far done with his money…

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