New Delhi, July 15 -- Venture capital (VC) firm HealthKois is sharpening its focus on life sciences innovation as it evaluates investment opportunities for its $300-million third fund, amid a growing pipeline of Indian startups in biotechnology and drug development.

"We are seeing significantly more startups now in this space than before," co-founder and general partner Ajay Mahipal told Mint in an interview. These are emerging across artificial intelligence (AI)-led drug discovery, cell and gene therapy and other areas of biotech innovation at different stages, he added.

"From our perspective, we are looking at biosimilar companies, vaccine companies, bioprocessing platforms, generative medicine, and precision oncology as some of the s...