Kartik Sunagar is Co-Founder and Director of Venomics AI, a Bengaluru biotech startup that uses AI and lab screening to turn animal venom molecules into potential medicines. He is also an Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, where he leads the Evolutionary Venomics Lab.

Kartik earned his PhD in Evolutionary Biology from IISc and was a Guest Scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 2015 to 2017. He joined IISc as faculty in 2017 and received the INSA Medal for Young Scientist in 2020.

Kartik also founded VISHAM, the Venom Institute for Snakebite Health and Advanced Medicine, and is a wildlife photographer known online as The Venom Detective. His work has appeared in Science and Science Translational Medicine, and his research has been cited over 6,400 times.

Venomics AI raised $2.7M in a pre-seed round co-led by Speciale Invest and South Park Commons, with Operators Studio participating. He co-founded the company with CTO Vinay Prabhu, who holds a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University.

Venomics AI is building the Venom Atlas, a molecular dataset of venom compounds, and has joined NVIDIA Inception. It was also named a Top 5 finalist for the 2026 Indo-Boston Biotech Bridge Award, and his lab received an Anthropic AI for Science Grant.