From Food Delivery to Frontier Science: What India’s Startups Must Aim For?
In every era, humanity has turned to science in moments of uncertainty. From the polio vaccine in the 20th century to the mRNA revolution in the 21st, science has pulled us back from the brink.
Today’s brink looks different — climate volatility, health inequities, ecological collapse, and rising social discontent. Yet, the answer remains the same: science must lead the way. Not the kind that ends with a publication, but the kind that dares to leap from lab to life. This demands entrepreneurial risk-taking—translating discovery into deployment.
We saw this during COVID-19. Diagnostics, vaccines, and digital health tools advanced at record speed. At-home test kits became commonplace. AI tracked outbreaks in real-time. It proved a simple truth: when urgency meets investment, science delivers.
Can’t we apply the same urgency to climate action, smallholder agriculture, or preventive health?
In India, 85% of farmers—nearly 140 million — own less than five acres of land. Their complex vulnerabilities range from erratic monsoons and soil degradation to market exclusion. Software alone cannot solve these issues; they require breakthroughs in soil regeneration, sustainable irrigation, decentralised food processing, and climate-resilient seeds. In other words, they need science.
However, science-led solutions can be commercially fragile during their early stages. For instance, consider a start-up focused on developing an affordable device for early-stage cervical cancer screening—a potentially life-saving tool, particularly in rural India, where gynaecological care is limited. Nonetheless, investing in such start-ups is not straightforward. Factors such as product design, clinical trials, regulatory hurdles, distribution challenges, and adoption issues create an unattractive risk-return profile for traditional venture capital models.
Should these innovations be sidelined because they don’t promise a hockey-stick growth curve in 18 months? This is the crux of the market failure in deep tech for humanity — the perception of risk overwhelms the potential for impact.
Yet, some of the boldest and most inspiring examples of social entrepreneurship today are emerging from India’s R&D labs. Consider EF Polymer India and Tan90, two materials science companies collaborating with farmers. Rechargion Energy Private Limited, is developing sodium-ion batteries to support India’s clean energy transition. Vidcare and Adsys will revolutionise how complex blood tests can be done with finger-prick samples in low-resource settings. Voxelgrids Innovations Pvt Ltd is building India’s first indigenous MRI machines to transform diagnostic affordability and accessibility. Tellus Habitat has developed sustainable, plug-and-play sewage treatment plants for decentralised sanitation. None of these were considered obvious investments. But here they are — bold, Indian, resilient and impactful.
When we help a rural health worker use AI-enabled diagnostics, we aren’t just deploying technology. We are democratising access. That, to me, is the new activism. Quiet. Persistent. Systemic.
Our entrepreneurs are patiently engineering systems of change. Not just app builders but problem solvers willing to spend time and effort on molecules, microbes, or machines that change lives.
When I speak to these founders, their motivation isn’t valuation. It’s validation — from a farmer who irrigates better, from a doctor who diagnoses earlier, from a city that breathes cleaner. At Social Alpha, we do not chase the market. We create the conditions for the market to show up. We are attempting to de-risk innovation through our full-stack architecture — blending grants with seed capital, catalysing first pilots, and bringing public, philanthropic, and private partners together.
We don’t treat underserved communities as passive beneficiaries but as co-creators and customers. Start-ups like bioLOCKEY Healthworks, Apratima Biosolutions, Ergon Labs, and Capsber Agriscience are only the beginning. They remind us that science doesn’t have to reside in elite institutions. It can thrive wherever curiosity meets courage.
However, the future of deep science will not be funded by venture capital alone and will not be driven by governments in isolation. Instead, it will require bold philanthropy, catalytic CSR, and forward-looking public policy at every stage of the lab-to-market journey.
We are not asking anyone to lower their expectations; instead, we invite everyone to raise their ambition. Let us support those building for the next billion — not just the next billion dollars. Let us bring science out of its silos and into the service of society. Let us be bold.
Because in a world on edge, science —guided by empathy and supported by an enabling ecosystem — is not just a pathway to innovation. It is our best bet for inclusive and sustainable development.
– Written by Manoj Kumar, Social Alpha