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Startups will crown new champions today at 12th ET Startup Awards in Bengaluru
Union minister for commerce and industry Piyush Goyal will be the guest of honour at the event, which will bring together a strong mix of past and present ETSA winners and nominees, alongside leading voices from India’s new-economy landscape. Goyal is expected to speak about the government’s efforts to deepen and expand the country’s emerging business ecosystem.
Union minister Piyush Goyal to headline ET Startup Awards on October 9 in Bengaluru
Goyal has been leading trade negotiations with key partners, including the US, after sealing high-profile deals with the UK, which came into force in July, and the EU, which is expected to take effect early next year. His ministry is also overhauling a raft of laws and regulations to make it easier to do business and to cement India's position as a global manufacturing hub, a push that has coincided with record foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows of $94.53 billion in FY26.
ET Startup Awards 2026: Groww adjudged No. 1; Sauce VC’s Manu Chandra named Midas Touch winner
The elite jury was chaired by Wipro executive chairman Rishad Premji. The 11-member panel deliberated for nearly three hours on Tuesday to pick winners in eight categories.
Fifty shades of Nifty growth: ETSA jury spots next giants
The elite jury was chaired by one of India’s brightest next-generation leaders Rishad Premji, executive chairman, Wipro. Members of the jury included Sachin Bansal, cofounder, Flipkart and Navi; Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO, Paytm; Mukesh Bansal, cofounder, Myntra; Mithun Sacheti, cofounder, CaratLane; Nandita Sinha, CEO, Swiggy Instamart; Ajit Mohan, chief business officer, Snap Inc; Irina Ghose, MD, Anthropic India; Paras Chopra, founder, Wingify, Lossfunk; Abhiraj Singh Bhal, cofounder and CEO, Urban Company; and Aryaman Birla, director, Aditya Birla Group.
The Economic Times Startup Awards 2026: And the big winners are…
Happy Thursday! Top entrepreneurs and business leaders came together in Bengaluru on August 25 to pick the winners of The Economic Times Startup Awards (ETSA) 2026.
As startups go public, ETSA jury asks: When does a startup cease to be one?
Do you consider a public market company a startup, or do those not qualify? That was the big debate when the jury met to decide the next cohort of winners for The Economic Times Startup Awards 2026.
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ET Startup Awards 2026 | Bootstrap Champ: Habuild stretches profits without bending to VC cash
Founded in 2020 by Saurabh and Trishala Bothra and Anshul Agrawal, the platform aimed to make yoga more accessible and has become one of India's largest digital wellness platforms, growing without external funding.
ETSA 2026: Jury to pick winners today; SoftBank trims Lenskart stake
The day has arrived! The elite jury of The Economic Times Startup Awards 2026 will convene in Bengaluru today to select the brightest stars in India’s startup galaxy. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.
ETSA 2026: Elite jury meets today to crown startup ecosystem's best
A distinguished jury led by Wipro’s Rishad Premji will select winners for the 12th edition of The Economic Times Startup Awards. The awards recognise entrepreneurial excellence across categories including innovation, women-led ventures and social enterprise. The coveted Startup of the Year nominees include Porter, Skyroot Aerospace, Rapido, Meesho, Groww and Sarvam.
Unveiling the high-powered ETSA 2026 jury; Zepto's profitability push
The Economic Times Startup Awards (ETSA) is back for a 12th edition. Today, we announce the high-powered jury and nominations for two categories, Bootstrap Champ and Top Innovator.
Presenting the jury for The Economic Times Startup Awards 2026
Meet the high-powered jury that will pick the winners of the ET Startup Awards 2026.
Unveiling The Economic Times Startup Awards 2026 high-powered jury
We’re back with the 12th edition of The Economic Times Startup Awards (ETSA). However hectic it gets for the ETtech team, the thrill of sifting through the best of Indian entrepreneurship makes up for every late night in the newsroom.
ET Startup Awards 2026 to crown A-List of entrepreneurs
Rishad Premji will helm a group of accomplished founders, business leaders and veteran entrepreneurs, who have built and scaled some of India’s best-known new economy companies — in ecommerce, fintech and software products — weathered multiple cycles and successfully exited their businesses.
Mandrake Bio raises Rs 16 crore to build AI-powered gene-editing platform for agriculture, medicine
Bengaluru startup Mandrake Bio secured sixteen crore rupees in new funding. This capital will expand their AI and biophysics teams for platform validation. The company uses generative AI to design novel gene-editing enzymes. This technology promises faster development for improved crops and therapies. Mandrake Bio aims to significantly reduce gene-editing development timelines and costs.
Everstone leads $150 million infusion in SaaS firm Wingify
Software firm Wingify secured Rs 1,381 crore in a new funding round led by Everstone Capital. This investment follows Wingify's recent announcement of a merger with AB Tasty. The combined entity aims to become a major global platform for digital experience optimization. Existing shareholders also participated in the funding round.
The revolution shall be tokenised: Inside the hacker homes incubating India’s AI future
In Bengaluru, hacker houses like The Residency are turning into live-in labs where young developers build AI startups while living together. Backed by active VC interest, these spaces and evolving hackathons are shaping a new generation of full-stack builders focused on real-world products, experimentation, and launching ideas into businesses.
India's neighbour-friendly FDI rules; LPG shortage hits food delivery
The Centre has eased FDI rules, allowing investors from land-bordering countries such as China to invest in Indian companies. This and more in today's ETtech Top 5.
Paras Chopra’s Lossfunk gets AI models to speak Tulu through prompts, not training
Lossfunk, an AI lab founded by Paras Chopra, created a prompting method that helps large language models produce Tulu text without prior training. Using grammar rules and negative constraints, accuracy reached about 85%. The approach may help expand AI support for low-resource Indian languages without costly data collection or specialised training.
Invest in AI R&D instead of giving dividends, Wingify founder Paras Chopra
Chopra shared these insights during a panel discussion titled “Build, Borrow, or Burn: The Truth About Models,” featuring Peeyush Ranjan, founder of Meraki Labs, and moderated by ETtech’s Samidha Sharma.
ET AI Conclave & Awards 2025: “Differentiation comes from doing something hard”
LossFunk Founder Paras Chopra and Peeyush Ranjan, Founder-CEO of Fermi.ai, tackled the uncomfortable truth about models, moats, and India’s AI future in a panel discussion, arguing that India’s real battle is culture, not compute.
India is nowhere close to building frontier AI models: Wingify's Paras Chopra
According to Chopra, India’s biggest constraint is the mindset. “We need to shift from a business mindset to a builder’s mindset — from chasing near-term profit to building the future.”
India is nowhere close to building frontier AI models and everyone knows it: Wingify's Paras Chopra
According to Chopra, India’s biggest constraint is mindset. “We need to shift from a business mindset to a builder’s mindset — from chasing near-term profit to building the future,” he said. For Ranjan of Meraki Labs, on the other hand, the opportunity lies in leapfrogging rather than competing head-on.
ET AI Conclave and Awards is set to redefine India’s AI leadership moment
Only two days remain before the ET AI Conclave and Awards takes center stage as India’s most anticipated AI conference in India and the most influential AI awards platform. The ET AI Conclave and Awards, hosted by The Economic Times, is not just another AI event happening in India or even seen before, the ET AI Conclave and Awards is where enterprise AI, generative AI, responsible AI, and AI innovation converge at scale. The countdown has begun. The urgency is real. The AI ecosystem is watching.
Be Where India’s AI Future Takes Shape - ET AI Awards
As India’s AI revolution accelerates, there’s one event that every entrepreneur, innovator, technologist, CXO, policymaker, and AI enthusiast simply cannot afford to miss. The ET AI Awards 2025, presented by The Economic Times. Scheduled for 26th February 2026 in Bengaluru, this conclave will be India’s most influential gathering of the AI ecosystem, where visionary leaders and strategic thinkers unite for a day of insight, influence, and unparalleled networking.
From 66 to 4: Why Y Combinator backed fewer Indian startups in 2024
Y Combinator's selection of Indian startups has decreased significantly. This decline is attributed to factors like YC's US incorporation requirement and the rise of domestic IPOs. Indian startups are shifting focus to local funding options. They find domestic markets favorable for listing. YC is also prioritizing AI-focused startups. This shift impacts Indian participation. Domestic capital is growing with regulatory support.
Y Combinator’s spring 2025 batch features 70 startups focused on agentic AI
Y Combinator’s Spring 2025 batch featured 70 agentic AI startups, each receiving $500,000. Leadership changes include Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel stepping back, while Jon Xu and Andrew Miklas became general partners.
Experts make a new case for open-source path to Indian LLMs
This debate, which has been brewing in the community, has come up after Sarvam AI was selected to build the country’s indigenous large language model under the IndiaAI Mission. The company was given access to close to 4,100 Nvidia H100 graphic processing units, and six months to build the model.
PCI’s MDR plea; India’s AI startups, accelerated
Happy Tuesday! The Payments Council of India has urged the PMO to reinstate the merchant discount rate (MDR) on UPI and RuPay debit card payments. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.
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