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    ETtech Startup Awards 2021: Celebrating breakthrough moments

    Synopsis

    The 11-member jury described 2021 as a breakthrough one for the Indian startup ecosystem in the wake of two highly successful IPOs—those of Zomato and Freshworks.

    JuryETtech
    (Illustration: Rahul Awasthi/ETtech)
    As Indian startups go public, the industry has come of age.

    This year’s ET Startup Awards jury meeting was held in the backdrop of two record-breaking IPOs by Indian startups—Zomato and Freshworks—which the esteemed panel termed as breakthrough moments not only for these companies, but also the overall Indian startup ecosystem.

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    The 11-member jury, which plugged in virtually for the two-hour-long meeting from across India, Silicon Valley and Singapore, came well prepared having read the 120-page dossier prepared by the ET editorial team.

    Chaired with precision by Infosys cofounder and non-executive chairman Nandan Nilekani, who kept the discussions sharp and focussed, involving all the jurors to share their views, the meeting wrapped up in record time.

    The shortlist of five candidates in each category was trimmed to two or three companies after initial voting, following which the jurors debated the merits of each to arrive at a final consensus, by way of a secret ballot. Most categories had two rounds of voting and lengthy debates to arrive at a winner.

    Setting the stage for the discussion, Nilekani said, “This year has shown that, with all the public offerings—Zomato in India, Freshworks in the US—these events will lead to capital recycling. Limited Partners or sponsors in funds have always said where is my liquidity? Now these IPOs will give liquidity back to LPs who in turn will put more money in…”

    Categories like ‘Comeback Kid’, ‘Woman Ahead’ and ‘Startup of the Year’ witnessed long discussions before the jury members picked the winners based on the second round of voting.

    Jury member Gokul Rajaram of DoorDash said that the jury process was very efficient and resilient. "Thanks to our chairperson Nandan Nilekani, who kept things moving but not at the expense of discussion and debate."

    Rajaram also said that since the voting was anonymous, jurors could vote their own minds after the discussion, without being influenced by others. "The two-stage voting process was fairer compared to the traditional straight-up vote," he added.

    What They Said

    Nandan Nilekani, cofounder, Infosys
    Nandan NilekaniETtech

    For the first time this year, I feel that Indian startups are moving the needle, and will do so in the future as well as they will play an increasingly strategic and critical role in post-pandemic recovery.

    GV Ravishankar, MD, Sequoia Capital India
    GV RavishankarETtech

    The choice of winners represents the jury's collective desire to recognise startups that have broken boundaries in terms of growth, innovation and setting new milestones that would encourage younger startups to aspire for bigger and loftier goals.

    Gokul Rajaram, product & business leader, DoorDash
    Gokul RajaramETtech

    ET did a great job compiling and collating information about the startup nominees in each category. It was as comprehensive as a venture capitalist memo on a company, except much more concise and crisp. I truly felt as if I knew the startups enough to opine on them. This was very different from other juries I’ve been on, where you just get a website to check out and a few lines on each company.

    Satyan Gajwani, vice chairman, Times Internet
    Satyan-GajwaniETtech

    It is pretty remarkable that last year, the startup of the year was the most private company around—Zerodha—and this year it is the most famous publicly traded startup that we’ve chosen.

    Sachin Bansal, founder & CEO, Navi Technologies
    Sachin BansalETtech

    Over the years, I have seen the ET Startup Awards, the quality of entrepreneurs and companies has improved tremendously. Some of the early-stage startups among the nominees are solving for broader societal changes and are also profitable early on as seen in the Social Enterprise category nominees this year.

    Deepinder Goyal, cofounder & CEO, Zomato
    Deepinder GoyalETtech

    One of the good things that I saw among the nominees today was the wide range of startups. 10 years ago, it was web 2.0 like us, or commerce like Flipkart, now there's a lot of deep tech, and founders are trying to do a lot of things. This will really shape the next 10 years going forward.

    Anu Hariharan, partner, YC Continuity Fund
    Anu HariharanETtech

    I'm seeing a huge change in ambition from Indian founders in the last decade. We've grown our alumni from 30 to more than 100 companies from India in the last two to three years. And I'd say that every founder in the batch is not building just for India, that's different from even 10 years ago.

    Amit Agarwal, global SVP & country head, Amazon India
    Amit Agarwal

    I’m attracted to the boldness of the ideas among the nominees. This year, we had satellite- launching startups to new kinds of batteries to use in robotics for sewage cleaning. This is just incredibly focused on actual customer problems, thinking about the business deeply versus just an idea.

    Harsh Jain, co-founder & CEO, Dream Sports
    Harsh JainETtech

    What stood out most for me was the depth and breadth in each category, analysing hyperscaling B2C, B2B & SaaS Indian businesses and seeing so many more women-led unicorns and soonicorns; all culminating to show that the Indian startup ecosystem has truly come of age.

    I was personally inspired by the Top Innovator category, which shows how Indian VCs are ploughing money into moonshot ideas that are pre-revenue, ranging from healthcare AI, to blockchain, aerospace, EV battery tech and imaging for autonomous vehicles.

    Nithin Kamath, founder & CEO, Zerodha
    Nithin KamathETtech

    We have international quality startups coming out of India, and The Economic Times Startup Awards captured this growing ecosystem perfectly through its different award categories. I learnt a lot, and it was quite interesting listening to different perspectives of the jury members about all the startups that were nominated.

    Ankiti Bose, cofounder & CEO, Zilingo
    Ankiti BoseETtech

    Having categories especially to honor those who navigated the pandemic well and for female founders is extraordinary, something the ecosystem truly needs today.
    The Economic Times

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