ET Start-up Awards 2017: Ravi Shankar Prasad, Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani make it a night to remember

BMWs and Mercedes Benzes swept up the driveway of Bengaluru's Leela Palace, dropping off A-list venture capital investors, startup founders, CEOs and bankers to celebrate the spirit of entrepreneurship at the ET Startup Awards, Friday last.

Union minister for IT Ravi Shankar Prasad's arrival brought the who's who into a huddle. Infosys founders NR Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani and the others were soon engaged in a conversation with him. Google India's Rajan Anandan too was spotted having a tete-atete with Prasad, as Murthy and Nilekani stepped aside to have a private conversation.


Nandan Nilekani shared some anecdotes on start-ups.

Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal, accompanied by his wife, Priya, joked that the evening's schedule should probably include a special discussion with Murthy, considering the turn of events at Infosys.


Sasha Mirchandani of Kae Capital.

A few, like serial entrepreneur K Ganesh, had arrived even earlier, and were spotted closeted in the coffee shop for meetings, with the awards providing a high-profile networking opportunity.

While Murthy's speech might have been the most-awaited, his reply to the master of ceremonies when asked who was a better actor, Deepika Padukone or Priyanka Chopra ("Deepika, because she's from Bangalore") evoked loud laughter. The over 400 guests who had gathered in the Grand Ballroom were no less appreciative of the remarks of Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was soon joined by his colleague, power minister Piyush Goyal, and the various winners, picked by an eminent jury.


Rahul Khanna of Trifecta.

Once the ceremony was over, the guests wasted no time in branching off into groups, to trade anecdotes over horsd'oeuvres and their libation of choice. A crowd gathered around the power minister, who was overhead telling them they must be happy to have given up their LPG subsidy if the money saved could be spent on welfare programmes. Quess Corp's Ajit Isaac remarked that choice of winners were so good that "I was wondering why we hadn't met some of them before and invested in them".


Anand Anandkumar of Bugworks and Arun Chandru of Pandorum Technologies.

It was well past midnight when the guests left, after an evening of discussions, networking and lighter moments. Until next year, when they all gather together again, at the next edition.