People · Professional & Local Services

Social Alpha names Neeraj Jain as CEO

By Startup Enthusiast · 30 September 2026

What they do

Social Alpha is a Bengaluru platform that backs science and technology startups working on climate, energy, health and livelihoods

Neeraj Jain, earlier a regional head at global health nonprofit PATH, became chief executive from 1 September 2026

He plans to focus on helping tested technologies reach adoption and scale, linking governments, investors, researchers and industry partners

Social Alpha is a lab-to-market platform that helps science and technology startups turn research into products for real-world problems.
It serves early-stage founders working on energy, natural resources, materials, food systems and health.
It supports them with grants, seed investments (small first cheques for equity), technical help and access to markets.
It is a support platform rather than a seller: its role is to unlock follow-on money from philanthropic, venture and strategic investors for its startups.
It has backed 450+ startups and reached about 3.5 million people across 400+ districts in 28 states.
It is based in Bengaluru and works across India with public and private health and energy partners.

**Manoj Kumar** co-founded Social Alpha in 2016 and led it as chief executive; he earlier headed innovation at Tata Trusts and studied at Harvard Business School. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkbhatt/