15 startups, 4 student teams win C-CAMP National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition 2026

Fifteen startups and four student teams were announced as the winners of the 9th edition of C-CAMP’s National Bio Entrepreneurship Competition (NBEC) 2026, held today in the presence of Dr Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Executive Chairperson, Biocon. The competition has been conducted with the support of the Department of IT, BT, S&T, Government of Karnataka as Home State Ecosystem Partner.

The winning startups received a total of 35+ Crore INR in cash prizes and investment opportunities, while student-led teams secured 4 Lakhs INR in cash prizes across various awards presented at the Finale held at The Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru. All winners will also receive mentorship and handholding support through partnerships with key industry leaders.

NBEC is C-CAMP’s flagship platform that identifies, nurtures and rewards India’s finest breakthrough solutions with strong impact potential to address critical challenges across Health, Agriculture and Environment. Over the past 8 years, it has positioned itself as India’s largest and most prestigious national biotech competition giving away more than 90Cr+ INR in cash prizes and investment opportunities to 130+ winners over 8 editions. The NBEC past winners’ cohort has together raised a total of 125 million+ USD VC funding from 120+ VCs, national and international, and has launched 300+ products making their mark in markets not just in India but worldwide.

This year’s competition, attracted 3200+ registrations from across 34 States and UTs, including a significant number from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Moreover, 40% of the applicants were female innovators. This highlights the remarkable gender diversity of the innovators, as well as the depth of biotech ideas unearthed by NBEC from smaller cities— adding tangible substance to India’s Women in Biotech vision.

NBEC 2026 showcased groundbreaking innovations with a strong societal impact. The winning projects in 2026 are developing solutions ranging from 

• next-gen cancer pathology, 

• screening of kidney injury through quantum sensing, 

• biopolymer based insitu bone regenerators, 

• affordable insulin patch pumps, 

• frugal surgery resources and training platforms for low resource surgery settings 

• compact grey water treatment appliances for home use

• satellite imagery embedded smart spraying of agri inputs in farms,

• bioformulations to enhance soil health, and so on. 

The winners were selected from 25 finalists who pitched to the Grand Jury at the Finale, chaired by Dr. Murali Ramachandra, CEO, Aurigene Oncology. The finalists had been shortlisted from a total of 74 pre-finalist startups based on their novelty, scalability and business potential parameters. 

Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson, Biocon Group: “The future of biology looks very promising as its convergence with digital technology and AI accelerates innovation at a never-before pace. With AI and deep tech unlocking biology’s complexity, we have a good understanding of the science. Now would be the time to leverage this deep science and combine with great business opportunities. As biotech entrepreneurs I urge you to address both science and the business of science. Once you have created value with your innovative science, think of how to scale a business. This will build a strong economy for an aspiring India and lift the country’s bioeconomy from 195 Bn USD to 2.6 trillion USD by 2047. I congratulate C-CAMP on identifying and supporting such a wide diversity of innovative ideas at NBEC year on year.”

Dr Taslimarif Saiyed, CEO and Director, C-CAMP expressed his thanks to Dr Kiran Shaw for being a pillar of support and mentor for NBEC from the first conceptualisation of the flagship platform in 2017 to its current 9th edition. He congratulated all the 74 pre-finalists of NBEC 2026, 25 of whom pitched today and highlighted the quality and impact potential of the cohort. He underlined the ambition to dream big with entrepreneurships and said, “We want India’s innovators to aim higher and trust ecosystems like C-CAMP to support with an ecosystem that enables your science and business growth.” 

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