Sanjay Nekkanti is the CEO and founder of Dhruva Space Private Limited. He has worked on small satellite programs and stratospheric experiments across Asia and Europe, of which notable ones include the SRMSAT mission, India’s first student satellite project, and the Velox-P mission in Singapore.

Nekkanti has a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Telecommunication from Sri Ramaswamy Memorial University, Chennai. He is also an EGIDE scholar and has two Master’s degrees – one in Space Technology from Sweden, and the other in Spatial Techniques & Instrumentation from France.

Over the years since the company's inception in 2012, Dhruva Space has seen many remarkable milestones. In October 2020, Dhruva Space was awarded the National Startup Award by the Government of India for its efforts in Satellite and Space Technology. In October 2021, the company raised ₹22 Crore in funding led by Indian Angel Network (IAN) Fund and Blue Ashva Capital. Later in 2022, Dhruva Space won the Qualcomm Design in India Challenge 2021 for its 5G and Satellite Communications device called ‘Qualcomm-based Module on Ground’. More recently, Nekkanti was featured in Fortune India’s ’40 Under 40’ 2022 edition.