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Unveiling the high-powered ETSA 2026 jury; Zepto's profitability push
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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.
Also in the letter:
■ US green card approvals drop
■ IT plans for cyberattacks
■ Stripe to buy OpenRouter
A power-packed jury chaired by Wipro executive chairman Rishad Premji will meet in Bengaluru on August 25 to select the winners of ETSA, India's most prestigious accolade for entrepreneurial excellence.
Who's on the panel:
The prestige: The ET Startup Awards remain the most prestigious honour for Indian entrepreneurs, even as much has changed since the inaugural edition in 2015.
This year, a panel of esteemed jurors helmed by Premji, will look for founders who can build resilient and scalable frontier technology businesses.
The process: ET reached out to more than 200 of the country's top entrepreneurs, investors, industry groups, and other stakeholders to compile a list of the brightest entrepreneurial talent. This was then refined by the paper's editorial team, working with knowledge partner Tracxn to arrive at the final list.
The jury will pick the winners after due deliberations followed by secret voting, when they meet in Bengaluru on August 25.
Nominees: Today, we announced nominees in two of the eight categories.
Bootstrap Champ: Entrepreneurs who have built startups without external funding.
Top Innovator: Startups developing transformative technologies.
Aadit Palicha, CEO, Zepto
Quick commerce company Zepto is sharpening its focus on profitability and cost structure as it prepares a fresh attempt to go public in a few quarters.
Driving the news: The company, which deferred its IPO after failing to get the desired pricing from institutional investors, is shifting away from chasing order volume growth. It is instead focussing on the average order value (AOV), sources told us.
This is similar to the strategy undertaken by rivals Blinkit and Instamart, who also sacrificed growth for better net profit.
New moves:
“The plan is to increase the AOV by about 25-30% over the next one to two quarters, from Rs 361 in the January-March period,” one of the persons said on condition of anonymity.
In an interview with us, Motilal Oswal Financial Services chairman Raamdeo Agrawal, a market veteran and an investor in Zepto, said the quick commerce firm's plans to go public were “premature”.
Quote, unquote: “Till companies are actually profitable, or very close to becoming profitable within a visible timeframe, they should not tap the public market. Because it is very difficult to make the public market understand the underlying value,” Agrawal said.
On valuation: Agrawal noted that mutual fund investors mark their portfolios to market daily and may be reluctant to invest at a valuation that could result in a mark-to-market loss the next day.
The approval rate for EB-1A, the US green card route for workers with extraordinary abilities, has fallen significantly in FY26, with Indian applicants hit the hardest.
Data decoded: According to data by Boundless Immigration based on USCIS figures:
Why the decline: Immigration experts attribute the drop to heightened scrutiny under the Trump administration. Over the past year, the government has introduced various measures to restrict skilled workers, primarily H-1B visa holders, where Indians are among the largest beneficiary cohorts.
“The current administration has adopted a noticeably hostile posture toward immigration, and that mandate is clearly being implemented via adjudicators, who are now demanding an unreasonably high bar be met,” said Joel Yanovich, senior attorney, Ganey Law Group.
Alternatives: With EB-2 and EB-3 backlogs stretching close to 15 years, many Indians are exploring other options. Some are leaving the US to work abroad for a year to qualify for EB-1 (C), while others with means are rushing into EB-5, meant for those investing in the US.
Also Read: No vacancy at home: Worsening job market greets H-1B returnees
A rise in cyberattacks on enterprise clients and growing litigation risk are pushing IT services companies to strengthen cyber resilience programmes.
For instance: IT majors including TCS, Infosys, Persistence Systems, LTM, and Coforge are running multi-crore Minimum Business Viability (MBV) assessments to secure their core operations, officials told us.
Unlike traditional BCP/DR (business continuity plan/disaster recovery) that tries to revive every system after an attack, MBV identifies the minimum set of applications, data, and infrastructure that must stay operational during a disruptive cyber incident.
Background: The move follows a series of security incidents and legal disputes in the technology sector.
Also Read: Clients may hit refresh on $13 billion IT deals by December
Fintech major Stripe has agreed to acquire OpenRouter, a startup that helps companies switch between artificial intelligence models, for more than $7 billion, Bloomberg reported.
What it means: This deal comes months after OpenRouter raised funds at a reported $1.3 billion valuation, highlighting rising demand from companies to seek cost-effective AI solutions. It also gives the payments processing firm a stronger footing in the AI sector.
Attracting investors: OpenRouter was founded in 2023 and has raised $150 million in capital so far. It serves about 8 million developers who rely on it to access more than 400 AI models.
Also in the letter:
■ US green card approvals drop
■ IT plans for cyberattacks
■ Stripe to buy OpenRouter
ET Startup Awards 2026 to crown A-List of entrepreneurs
A power-packed jury chaired by Wipro executive chairman Rishad Premji will meet in Bengaluru on August 25 to select the winners of ETSA, India's most prestigious accolade for entrepreneurial excellence.
Who's on the panel:
- Rishad Premji (Jury Chair) — Executive Chairman, Wipro
- Vijay Shekhar Sharma — Founder & CEO, Paytm
- Mukesh Bansal — Cofounder, Myntra, Curefit
- Sachin Bansal — Cofounder, Flipkart, Navi
- Mithun Sacheti — Cofounder, CaratLane
- Adwaita Nayar — Cofounder, Nykaa
- Ajit Mohan — Chief Business Officer, Snap Inc
- Irina Ghose — MD, Anthropic India
- Paras Chopra — Founder, Wingify, Lossfunk
- Abhiraj Singh Bhal — Cofounder & CEO, Urban Company
- Aryaman Vikram Birla — Director, Aditya Birla Group
- Satyan Gajwani — Chairman, Times Internet
The prestige: The ET Startup Awards remain the most prestigious honour for Indian entrepreneurs, even as much has changed since the inaugural edition in 2015.
This year, a panel of esteemed jurors helmed by Premji, will look for founders who can build resilient and scalable frontier technology businesses.
The process: ET reached out to more than 200 of the country's top entrepreneurs, investors, industry groups, and other stakeholders to compile a list of the brightest entrepreneurial talent. This was then refined by the paper's editorial team, working with knowledge partner Tracxn to arrive at the final list.
The jury will pick the winners after due deliberations followed by secret voting, when they meet in Bengaluru on August 25.
Nominees: Today, we announced nominees in two of the eight categories.
Bootstrap Champ: Entrepreneurs who have built startups without external funding.
- Suta
- Habuild
- Urban Vault
- Melento
- D'You
Top Innovator: Startups developing transformative technologies.
- Theranautilus
- Ethereal Exploration Guild (EtherealX)
- 4baseCare
- QNu Labs
- Agrani Labs
Zepto blinks on volume push, targets higher average order value to cut losses
Quick commerce company Zepto is sharpening its focus on profitability and cost structure as it prepares a fresh attempt to go public in a few quarters.
Driving the news: The company, which deferred its IPO after failing to get the desired pricing from institutional investors, is shifting away from chasing order volume growth. It is instead focussing on the average order value (AOV), sources told us.
This is similar to the strategy undertaken by rivals Blinkit and Instamart, who also sacrificed growth for better net profit.
New moves:
- Zepto has raised the minimum order value for free deliveries to Rs 149; this is expected to increase to Rs 199.
- The company has already started seeing a decline in its month-on-month order volume growth.
“The plan is to increase the AOV by about 25-30% over the next one to two quarters, from Rs 361 in the January-March period,” one of the persons said on condition of anonymity.
In an interview with us, Motilal Oswal Financial Services chairman Raamdeo Agrawal, a market veteran and an investor in Zepto, said the quick commerce firm's plans to go public were “premature”.
Quote, unquote: “Till companies are actually profitable, or very close to becoming profitable within a visible timeframe, they should not tap the public market. Because it is very difficult to make the public market understand the underlying value,” Agrawal said.
On valuation: Agrawal noted that mutual fund investors mark their portfolios to market daily and may be reluctant to invest at a valuation that could result in a mark-to-market loss the next day.
Indian techies hit hardest as US green card approvals drop 35%
The approval rate for EB-1A, the US green card route for workers with extraordinary abilities, has fallen significantly in FY26, with Indian applicants hit the hardest.
Data decoded: According to data by Boundless Immigration based on USCIS figures:
- Indians filed 14,250 petitions in FY25, with 6,993 approvals and 1,474 denials (49.1% approval).
- In the first two quarters of FY26 (US), Indians filed 7,316 petitions, with 2,571 approvals and 1,131 denials, pushing the approval rate down to 35%.
Why the decline: Immigration experts attribute the drop to heightened scrutiny under the Trump administration. Over the past year, the government has introduced various measures to restrict skilled workers, primarily H-1B visa holders, where Indians are among the largest beneficiary cohorts.
“The current administration has adopted a noticeably hostile posture toward immigration, and that mandate is clearly being implemented via adjudicators, who are now demanding an unreasonably high bar be met,” said Joel Yanovich, senior attorney, Ganey Law Group.
Alternatives: With EB-2 and EB-3 backlogs stretching close to 15 years, many Indians are exploring other options. Some are leaving the US to work abroad for a year to qualify for EB-1 (C), while others with means are rushing into EB-5, meant for those investing in the US.
Also Read: No vacancy at home: Worsening job market greets H-1B returnees
IT seeks 'minimum viability' shield as cyberattacks surge
A rise in cyberattacks on enterprise clients and growing litigation risk are pushing IT services companies to strengthen cyber resilience programmes.
For instance: IT majors including TCS, Infosys, Persistence Systems, LTM, and Coforge are running multi-crore Minimum Business Viability (MBV) assessments to secure their core operations, officials told us.
Unlike traditional BCP/DR (business continuity plan/disaster recovery) that tries to revive every system after an attack, MBV identifies the minimum set of applications, data, and infrastructure that must stay operational during a disruptive cyber incident.
Background: The move follows a series of security incidents and legal disputes in the technology sector.
- Last week, TCS and HCLTech separately informed stock exchanges that unidentified hacker groups had attempted to steal employee information.
- Last year in April, TCS customer Marks & Spencer (M&S) highlighted a cyber-attack that led to significant data theft.
Also Read: Clients may hit refresh on $13 billion IT deals by December
Stripe to acquire AI firm OpenRouter for over $7 billion
Fintech major Stripe has agreed to acquire OpenRouter, a startup that helps companies switch between artificial intelligence models, for more than $7 billion, Bloomberg reported.
What it means: This deal comes months after OpenRouter raised funds at a reported $1.3 billion valuation, highlighting rising demand from companies to seek cost-effective AI solutions. It also gives the payments processing firm a stronger footing in the AI sector.
Attracting investors: OpenRouter was founded in 2023 and has raised $150 million in capital so far. It serves about 8 million developers who rely on it to access more than 400 AI models.
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