ET Startup Awards 2024: Playing on front foot in innovation game

Entrepreneurs might be the stars and indeed the raison d’etre of the ET Startup Awards, but at the high-profile jury meeting at The Leela Palace in Bengaluru on Wednesday, the cynosure of all eyes was jury member and Indian cricketer Shubman Gill.

The tone was set early on when fellow jury member Sumer Juneja, managing partner (India and EMEA) at SoftBank, walked in with a white cricket ball. It turned out he had come with strict instructions from his ten-year-old son back home in London to get Gill’s autograph.

ET Startup Awards 2024: Lenskart gets 10/10, bags top honours

Nor was he the only one. CaratLane founder Mithun Sacheti, too, got Gill’s signature for his son, but as a surprise, while Browserstack CEO Ritesh Arora was concerned that he had not come prepared with paper and pen for the coveted autograph (he was soon assured that this could be easily managed). Gill sportingly obliged multiple requests for both his signature and selfies. Sacheti, an avid sports fan, meanwhile came in for some gentle ribbing for scheduling a Chennai Super Kings party at the same time as the ET Startup Awards last year and luring away several entrepreneur guests.

Jury chair Nandan Nilekani was seen greeting fellow Bangalorean and Zerodha cofounder Nikhil Kamath warmly, introducing him as a hometown boy to some of the other jury members enjoying the breezy afternoon before being cloistered together for the discussions. While Nilekani is one of those rare Indians who do not consider cricket a religion, he was keenly appreciative of Gill’s well-articulated thoughts during the deliberations, which stretched for a little over two hours.

Jurors also took time out to quiz those in the thick of India’s quick-commerce boom, to better understand what the fuss was all about. And, if the sky-high valuations were indeed warranted. The collegial banter pointed to ties that bind India’s burgeoning startup sector, where youth, experience and hard-won execution skills are now combining to deliver high-quality ventures.

ET Startup Awards 2024 | Startup of the Year: You don't need glasses to see what Lenskart did in this space

The jurors were full of praise for the variety of technology-led businesses competing for the top spot across campuses, in the social enterprise field, among women-led ventures and those bootstrapping their way to success.

He pointed to the spectacular rise of the now publicly listed companies such as Zomato, winner of the Startup of the Year prize in 2021 which currently has a market cap of $28 billion, and SaaS major Freshworks, the 2016 top prize winner that listed on Nasdaq three years ago.

The jurors took time to sift through the merits of each of the contenders across categories. They deliberated the most over deciding the investor with the Midas Touch and the Startup of the Year. Both categories had six contestants this year, up from five each in previous editions. Following intense discussions and consequent rounds of voting through secret ballot, the jurors overwhelmingly chose eyewear major Lenskart as the Startup of the Year 2024.

The doors were finally thrown open at 5:30 pm with some of the jurors rushing to make it in time for their flights out — but not before the mandatory selfie and signature with Gill.