Key takeaways
- Novyte Materials secures ₹4.15 crore in pre-seed funding led by Theia Ventures.
- Funding will support development of AI-led materials discovery platform for various industries.
- Startup aims to enhance collaborative materials discovery in manufacturing, aerospace, and specialty chemicals.
- Theia Ventures focuses on AI and deep tech investments, marking its fourth deployment from a new fund.
- Founder emphasizes AI's role in transforming materials search into a scalable engineering process.
Novyte Materials has secured a ₹4.15 crore pre-seed funding round led by Theia Ventures. With the fresh capital, the Mumbai-based company plans to support the development of its AI-led materials discovery platform, the firm said in a statement.
The round also saw participation from Sandesh Paturi, co-founder of Venwiz, and Niharika Jain, director at Chemvera.
Novyte Materials wants to advance its platform development and early pilot projects, as the startup aims to speed up collaborative materials discovery across industries such as advanced manufacturing, aerospace, and speciality chemicals.
Ajaz Khan, founder and chief executive of Novyte Materials, observed that current innovation is constrained by the materials available. “By decoding complex chemical interactions with AI, we are turning the search for new materials into a predictable, scalable engineering process,” he said in a statement.
The investment marks Theia Ventures’ fourth deployment from its new fund, which announced its first close in October 2025. Theia Ventures said the investment in Novyte Materials aligns with its focus on AI, deep tech, energy transition, and decarbonisation. Its investment portfolio includes Sarla Aviation, Climitra Carbon, and Lemnisca, with more investments planned for the current financial year.
Novyte Materials said it is addressing long development cycles in materials science, where traditional discovery often takes years due to trial-and-error processes and fragmented validation. The company claims its AI-driven approach can cut research and development timelines by up to ten times and reduce early-stage physical testing costs by up to 90%.
The startup’s generative AI system designs, validates, and reverse-engineers materials using physics-based simulations. It targets applications across composite materials, advanced manufacturing and speciality chemicals, as industries seek materials with improved performance and reliability.
“As AI becomes foundational infrastructure for every industry, Novyte is bringing that transformation to materials discovery,” said Priya Shah, founder and general partner at Theia Ventures. She added that the platform could speed up innovation in energy, aerospace and manufacturing.
Novyte is incubated at ICT-NICE, the Institute of Chemical Technology's innovation hub, and operates within the institute’s research ecosystem while building its own synthesis lab and research infrastructure. The company plans to initially partner with firms seeking alternative materials to produce speciality chemicals, polymers, paints, adhesives, and coatings.
Novyte seeks collaborations and strategic partnerships as it works to shorten development timelines and make the path from laboratory research to commercialisation more predictable.
