IIF invests in Shantani Proteome
India Innovation Fund (IIF), formerly known as NASSCOM-ICICI Knowledge Park Innovation Fund, is a $25.3 million venture capital fund managed by IKP Investment Management. It invests between $0.12 million and $1.2 million in its portfolio companies from different sectors including bio sciences.

During this year, it has invested an undisclosed amount in Pune-based Shantani Proteome Analytics, along with Blume Ventures. Besides it has invested in Consure Medical, a firm incubated at AIIMS Delhi and has a medical device that addresses fecal incontinence. In all it has invested in three life sciences portfolios (the third one-Mitra Biotech) in the last two years.

Sharing his thoughts on investing in Shantani, Mr Ashwin Raguraman, vice president, India Innovation Funds said, "Shantani is a drug discovery technology company, offering a proprietary chemical proteomics technology platform for the identification of the targets of drugs and drug like bioactive molecules. This target information is essential for the understanding of action mechanisms of compounds identified through phenotypic screening."

"It is also valuable for drug repositioning purposes and for identifying off-target interactions of a drug to understand its toxicity profile. Shantani was incubated at National Chemical Laboratories' Venture Center, Pune, and is founded by a scientist Dr Chaitanya Saxena who achieved his PhD in the US and worked in global corporations such as Eli Lily," he added.