InnovNation was founded by Neelesh Bhatia, an innovation ecosystem builder and entrepreneurship educator with over three decades of experience working across universities, governments, startup ecosystems, and policy-led innovation initiatives throughout Asia, in partnership with Lionel Lee, a startup ecosystem enabler with deep expertise in Asian markets.

Throughout his career, Neelesh has worked closely with faculty, founders, incubator leaders, and policymakers to design entrepreneurship programs, build institutional capability, and support early-stage startups. A consistent insight emerged from this work: while innovation activity is widespread, the structure and continuity needed to produce measurable outcomes are often missing.

InnovNation was created to close this gap—serving as an operating system for innovation ecosystems that combines practitioner-led strategy, capability building, and AI-enabled infrastructure to drive sustained, measurable impact.