Top founders and investors pick their startup of the year

ET asked some of the country’s top founders and investors to pick their startup of the year. They also summed up how 2018 panned out for them.

Abhay Pandey, General Partner, A91 Partners
MY PICK: Nykaa
WHAT IT DOES: A marketplace for beauty; strong private brand play with more than 10% of its sales
WHY I PICKED IT: It’s a sizeable market with highly engaged users, phenomenal team, excellent execution based on frugal mindset, focused on capital efficiency and making money
MY YEAR AS AN INVESTOR: A year of big change, from ‘the best job I have done’ to ‘shaping my own dreams’. First half was about raising next rounds for Bira and Awfis and second half was about thinking through organisation design for A91

Kunal Shah, Founder, Cred
MY PICK: Zerodha
WHAT IT DOES: They offer advanced and intuitive investing platforms for stocks, direct mutual funds, GSecs, and more — all for zero brokerage costs
WHY I PICKED IT: This year they became the largest retail brokerage firm in India, competing against some of the biggest financial conglomerates in the country, while remaining bootstrapped. Through their incubator and broking-as-a-service model, they have also enabled multiple startups to create niche trading platforms to help expand the capital market ecosystem in India
MY YEAR AS A FOUNDER: 2018 has been a great year as I got back to starting up again. It doesn’t get easier as you get older but it is a great way to feel younger. CRED has had a fabulous launch and we are already 2x the size on daily transaction value in three weeks compared to what FreeCharge was at its peak when we exited the company after five years

Farid Ahsan, Cofounder, Sharechat
MY PICK: Mobile Premier League (MPL)
WHAT IT DOES: eSports league and real-money tournaments for casual skill games
WHY I PICKED IT: Gaming is going to be very big in India in the coming years, and the technology and product mindset required for serving this user is very rare to find, and this startup has it all
MY YEAR AS A FOUNDER: 2018 has been the craziest growth year of our startup journey. We grew more than 10x on every single front last year. A lot of investor confidence was gained, which also reflects in the amount of investment we could raise this year

Tarun Davda, MD, Matrix Partners
MY PICK: Meesho
WHAT IT DOES: Social ecommerce app that enables the distribution of fashion products by resellers and local influencers using social media
WHY I PICKED IT: Social ecommerce is a big trend globally. There is an opportunity to build a better Amway, using new-age distribution channels such as WhatsApp and Instagram. While there are a number of competitors in this space, the Meesho team was the first to innovate on the business model and have executed well in 2018. Long-term success will depend on which platform can attract and retain the top 10% resellers
MY YEAR AS AN INVESTOR: 2018 was an exciting year for Matrix India. Many of our large companies went on to become even stronger while the recent investments like OfBusiness, Stanza and Vogo raised follow-on funding. Some younger companies are yet to find product market fit and raising funds was harder for them. While that’s par for the course it’s always a humbling journey for the founder and early investor. We made the highest number of new investments we’ve ever made in a year, expanded the team and moved to our new Mumbai office — so all in all it has been a very eventful year

Sandeep Singhal, MD, Nexus Venture Partners
MY PICK: Dream11
WHAT IT DOES: Allow players to create fantasy leagues based on real sports and play with friends or strangers online
WHY I PICKED IT: Very well positioned to benefit from the growth in new sports leagues — PKL (kabaddi), football, hockey, badminton, etc, and the growth in smartphones across the country. Combining offline to online with the network will build an extremely valuable enterprise
MY YEAR AS AN INVESTOR: The growth of the networked trust economy in India — Aadhaar, UPI, GST network, smartphones and broadband will result in the next generation of billion-dollar companies

Sahil Barua, CEO, Delhivery
MY PICK: Bytedance
WHAT IT DOES: Video-based social media app
WHY I PICKED IT: Incredible virality, potential Facebook disruptor, world’s most valuable startup
MY YEAR AS A FOUNDER : 2018 has been a pivotal year for our industry with the rollout of GST. New opportunities opened up for us in unexpected verticals and our principal learning has been in terms of how to create and manage early-stage startup environments

PARTICIPANTS WERE ASKED NOT TO PICK STARTUPS WHERE THEY HOLD A STAKE INDIVIDUALLY OR THROUGH THEIR FUNDS