- Backing Frontier Startups Reimagining Infrastructure, Health, Climate, and Space from India for the World
Bengaluru, March 25, 2026: Global technology company Prosus and venture capital firm Accel today announced the six startups selected for the inaugural Atoms X LeapTech cohort. This joint initiative supports bold founders building frontier companies from Day Zero.
The cohort, selected from over 2,000 applications, focuses on LeapTech—innovations that combine scientific breakthroughs and engineering ambition to deliver step-change progress in foundational areas. The selected companies span across diverse sectors, covering climate infrastructure, space communications, aerospace launch systems, and next-generation healthcare.
Pratik Agarwal, Partner at Accel, said, “LeapTech requires conviction to build companies years before there is consensus. The quality of applications exceeded our expectations for Accel Atoms X, showing how Indian founders around the world are building breakthroughs to commercialise science and create all-new categories. We are excited to partner and work closely with the cohort to tackle foundational problems with the long-term thinking required to create enduring, population-scale impact.”
Ashutosh Sharma, Head of India Ecosystem at Prosus, said, "The overwhelming response to our inaugural cohort further builds our conviction that innovation in India is not constrained by ideas or inspiration. It is constrained by the right backing at the right time. We are thrilled with the calibre of founders in this cohort, who are tackling some of the hardest problems in climate, space, and healthcare with genuine scientific depth. Prosus brings global scale, operating know-how, and patient capital to this partnership. Our role alongside Accel is to clear the path - whether that's capital, global networks, or operational muscle - so these founders can think in decades, not quarters. Through Prosus Ventures, our ambition is to turn breakthrough technology into everyday reality at population scale. Atoms X is how we bring that belief to Day Zero."
Under the Accel–Prosus alliance, Prosus matches Accel’s investment in each company. This provides founders with long-term, global capital certainty to pursue complex, long-horizon ideas without compromise. The Atoms X program offers capital, mentorship, and access to global partners. The inaugural Atoms X Cohort includes:
- Praan: Building full-stack air infrastructure with filterless technology for advanced purification and environmental control. Their filterless technology captures particles 166x smaller than traditional systems.
- QOSMIC: Developing optical communication infrastructure for 100x faster ultra-high-speed data transfer between satellites and Earth.
- Dognosis: Detecting multiple cancers from breath using canine olfaction, robotics, and AI.
- Ethereal Exploration Guild: Building fully reusable orbital launch vehicles to dramatically reduce launch costs to $500/kg and increase the launch cadence for space access.
- Ferra: Developing safe, adaptive resistance training technology for a guided home longevity system to support strength in aging populations.
- Stealth Startup: The firms announced one startup in the cohort is stealth, and is developing revolutionary brain computer interfaces.
The announcement builds on the broader Accel Atoms program launched in 2021, through which Accel has backed over 50 companies and these startups have collectively raised over $300 million in follow-on funding in their journey of building category-defining businesses. Together, these initiatives represent a new era for early-stage innovation in India, where global capital and technology converge to accelerate founder journeys.
Applications for future Atoms X cohorts are under active evaluation. Interested founders can apply early on https://atoms.accel.com/x.
About Accel
Accel is a global venture capital firm that is the first partner to exceptional teams everywhere, from inception through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Bumble, CrowdStrike, Fiverr, Flipkart, Freshworks, Qualtrics, Scale, Segment, Slack, Spotify, Squarespace, Tenable, and UiPath are among the companies Accel has backed over the past 40+ years. We help ambitious entrepreneurs build iconic global businesses. For more, visit www.accel.com
About Prosus
Prosus is the power behind the world’s leading lifestyle ecommerce brands, across Europe, India, and Latin America, unlocking an AI-first world for our 2 billion customers.
The Prosus technology ecosystem spans food delivery, payments, classifieds, travel, events, and mobility. Our integrated approach enhances user engagement and creates the foundation for unprecedented AI capabilities through proprietary data and cross-service intelligence.
Through Prosus Ventures, we invest in companies which inspire and support the Prosus ecosystem. We search for new opportunities at the leading edge of AI and ecommerce, the digital AI workforce and in frontier technologies, such as robotics, drones and synbio.
The team actively backs exceptional entrepreneurs who are using technology to improve people’s everyday lives.
To find out more, please visit www.prosus.com.
