Curcumin is the source of the spice turmeric having potential application in tumor treatment but has limited therapeutic utility because of its poor aqueous solubility. Curcumin suppresses the onset of tumors as well as their growth and metastasis. Cyclodextrin-based nanosponges (NS) have been used to increase the solubility of curcumin and to control its release. The aim of the study was to formulate the complex of curcumin with β-cyclodextrin nanosponge obtained with dimethyl carbonate as a cross linker. The particle size of loaded nanosponge was found to be 487.3 nm with minimum polydispersibility index (0.476). The loaded NS have shown more solubilization efficiency (20.89 μg/ml) in comparison with plain curcumin (0.4 μg/ml) and β-CD complex (5.88 μg/ml). The zeta potential was sufficiently high (-27 mV) which indicates formation of a stable colloidal nanosuspension. The curcumin nanosponge complex (CrNS) was characterized for FTIR, XRD and DSC studies and it confirmed the interactions of curcumin with NS. The in vitro drug release of curcumin was controlled over a prolonged period of time. The in vitro hemolysis study showed that the complex was non-hemolytic. CrNS sample showed only a slight reduction in cytotoxicity against MCF-7 cells, which concludes that there is no change in molecular structure of curcumin in CrNS formulation. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.