Accel and Prosus Select Six Groundbreaking 'Off-the-Map' Startups for Inaugural ATOMs India Cohort

Accel and Prosus have announced the first six startups for their landmark ATOMs program cohort in India, targeting bold innovations in uncharted markets.

Chosen from over 2,000 applications since the program's reveal in October 2025, these ventures span healthcare, climate, space, and longevity with long development cycles and uncertain paths to commercialization.

The Pioneering Startups

Mumbai-based Praan is building advanced air infrastructure systems featuring purification, sensing, and automated controls to transform indoor air quality.

Bengaluru's QOSMIC develops optical communication technologies to boost data transfer speeds and cut latency between satellites and Earth.

EtherealX, also from Bengaluru, creates reusable orbital launch vehicles to drastically reduce the cost of space access, following a recent $20.5 million Series A.

Dognosis innovates cancer detection using dogs' superior sense of smell combined with robotics and AI through its BreatheEasy breath analysis product.

Ferra offers a home-based strength-training system that automatically adjusts resistance to help aging individuals maintain mobility.

A stealth startup is pioneering brain-computer interfaces for seamless direct communication between human brains and external systems.

Program Details and Impact

The ATOMs initiative provides checks from $500,000 to $2 million, with Prosus matching Accel's investments and deferring some capital to ease early dilution for founders.

Pratik Agarwal from Accel emphasized that these science-led breakthroughs demand time over rapid growth metrics.

Ashutosh Sharma of Prosus highlighted the focus on technical milestones for startups serving India's 1.4 billion people.

Historically, such programs fill gaps in traditional VC for high-risk, high-reward ideas outside conventional playbooks.