Traditional VC model not enough for deep science: Social Alpha founder

Manoj Kumar, the founder of venture development platform Social Alpha, says that deep science is all about impact first, rather than return first, making it harder to find typical venture funding

Social Alpha, India's leading venture development platform, is doubling down on its commitment to deep science firms in 2025, focusing on areas like climate technology, affordable healthcare, sustainable energy, and advanced manufacturing. The organisation is one of the few platforms in India focused on deep science early-stage investing, often at pre-product stage where most venture capital firms won’t invest, according to Manoj Kumar, founder, Social Alpha. He said deep science doesn’t always fit the VC playbook due to longer development cycles and higher risks, especially in areas such as hardware, vaccines, and pharma. He said Social Alpha has supported over 300 ventures, evaluated more than 20,000 ideas, and made about 100 investments, impacting over 3 million underserved communities across India. Edited excerpts:

 

What inspired you to start Social Alpha? 

I founded Social Alpha in 2016 as a not-for-profit venture development platform for deep science and tech startups solving complex challenges in agriculture, water, sanitation, waste management, pollution, and primary healthcare: areas where breakthrough innovation is critical but mainstream capital is scarce. 

We set it up as a nonprofit because the traditional venture capital model doesn’t work for deep science, which needs high-risk, patient capital, grants, market access, and hands-on mentoring, not just equity funding.

 

We work closely with end users and communities, ensuring innovations address real needs, and focus on sectors where the ecosystem is still evolving, not where mainstream capital already flows. Our full-stack architecture supports startups across pilots, validation, deployment, and scale-up, while leveraging community connections, public policy advocacy, and follow-on capital to help them succeed.

 

Could you give examples of the transformative innovations that you are backing? 

We collaborate with top scientific institutions — IITs, IISc, CSIR-NAL, ISRO, BARC — scouting innovations in labs and encouraging scientists to become entrepreneurs, offering from lab to market support. We also run tech and grant challenges, publishing problem statements and inviting founders to build solutions. We’ve supported 338 innovations, including transformative startups across biotechnology, energy efficiency, agriculture, and healthcare. 

For example, Phool, a company from Kanpur, began by upcycling temple flower waste into charcoal-free incense and evolved into a biomaterials company developing Fleather, a sustainable leather alternative, recognized by PETA as a top vegan innovation. 

Another firm Tan90, spun out of an IIT Madras PhD thesis, offers energy-efficient cold storage solutions using Phase Change Materials (PCMs). Their portable products serve farmers, fishermen, and flower vendors. It has several use cases even to transport vaccines and strengthen frozen food delivery and supply chains. 

In healthcare, we incubated Voxelgrid, which has built India’s first 1.5 Tesla MRI machine, competing with global giants like GE and Siemens. We have backed Ai Health Highway, which tackles cardiovascular screening gaps at primary healthcare clinics with its AI-powered smart stethoscope, AiSteth.   With Social Alpha’s support, AiSteth completed clinical trials at Jayadeva Hospital, gained expertise from IISc, Sound Hub Denmark, and CDL Montreal, and received guidance on design, manufacturing, and compliance. It is now pursuing FDA approval for the US market. Social Alpha also helped the firm raise $1.5 million for further growth.

 

How do you evaluate companies which may be aligned with your values? 

Evaluation is the toughest part of our work. Our first priority isn’t financial, it’s understanding the problem being solved and the potential impact. For example, if a startup is developing a technology to depolymerise plastic, we assess its potential to reduce plastic pollution and its alignment with our mission of sustainability and affordability.  The second element is scientific and technological validation. We tap into a global network of top scientists and domain experts, carefully chosen based on specific technology, whether it’s biopolymers, MRI physics, or advanced materials, to assess if the science can truly solve the problem. Once the science holds up, we evaluate market potential: Does this technology address a large enough problem and can it become a scalable, sustainable business? Finally, we assess the founding team’s execution capability, intellectual rigour, commitment, and willingness to roll up their sleeves to take the innovation from lab to market.

 

What are the risks when you are investing in deep science startups, and how do you mitigate them? 

Deep science is inherently high-risk and long-cycle. The biggest risk we face is early technology failure. Even if the science works, raising follow-on capital remains a major challenge attracting VCs or other investors is never guaranteed, especially in deep science. As companies mature, risk reduces, but the funding challenge persists. 

It can take years to develop deep-tech products that are often in labs or academic institutions and fly under the radar. This lack of visibility adds to the risk, global innovations in materials, devices, and technologies can disrupt our startups at any time. To manage this, we closely monitor global R&D, scientific publications, citations, and technology developments across academia and industry. Staying ahead is tough, but essential. 

On resourcing, we’ve created a blended financing model that leverages philanthropy, CSR, government, and private capital to support these complex, high-risk innovations. We raise grants (which fund programmes like product development or market access, not direct investments), government scheme funding through our four incubators, and capital from family offices, friends, and supporters of Social Alpha for investments. We also reinvest any exit proceeds back into the pool.

 

How do you measure success, financial returns and the impact? 

We are impact-first, not return-first. Success is measured by how many innovations move from lab to market and create real change. This includes how many households get better energy access, how many healthcare centres adopt our innovations, or how we help solve challenges in agriculture, water, climate, and healthcare. 

Our non-profit structure preserves this focus. Any returns from exits are reinvested into supporting more startups. We bring venture capital discipline to philanthropic investing, ensuring deep science gets the patient capital and long-term support it needs. Our goal is to build a strong portfolio of innovations that can significantly reduce and avoid greenhouse gas emissions targeting a gigaton per year by 2030.  In healthcare, we aim to introduce over 100 validated, tested, and government-approved innovations into the system to make primary healthcare more affordable and accessible, reducing out-of-pocket expenses through cost-effective diagnostics, screening, and early referrals. For agriculture, we want to ensure small and marginal farmers, i.e. over 85 per cent of India’s farmers, have access to affordable, high-quality equipment and solutions that increase income, improve resilience, and reduce post-harvest losses.