ET Startup Awards 2021: Nominees for Covid-led Business Transformation

This award will recognize a startup that transformed and adapted its business amid the Covid-19 pandemic and survived through the past year.

Cuemath

Founded In: 2011
Founders: Manan Khurma

Based In: Bengaluru
Key Investors: Sequoia Capital, CapitalG, LGT Lightstone Aspada, Alpha Wave Incubation
What it Does: Cuemath is an education technology startup focused on math tutoring in the K-12 space globally. Over 200,000 students have enrolled on its platform so far and it has expanded its presence to 25 countries, shifting focus from an offline-plus-online model to an online-only model.


Hubilo

Founded In: 2020
Founders: Vaibhav Jain and Mayank Agarwal
Based In: San Francisco/Ahmedabad
Key Investors: Lightspeed India, Lightspeed Venture Partners (US), Balderton Capital
What it Does: Hubilo is a cloud-based virtual and hybrid event management software provider that offers businesses real-time insights and analytics to gauge the success of events. Hubilo pivoted to a virtual events platform in under 20 days following the Covid-19 pandemic. It repackaged its existing solution and scaled up its virtual event platform quickly.


Rapido

Founded In: 2015
Founders: Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli and Rishikesh SR
Based In: Bengaluru
Key Investors: Nexus Venture Partners, WestBridge, Integrated Capital, Shell Ventures
What it Does: Rapido is the pioneer in the bike taxi segment, launching the service in 2015. The business was severely affected by the pandemic, but it quickly pivoted to partnering with companies delivering food and essential items. It also launched Rapido Auto, and now almost 40% of its revenue comes from the new initiatives.


Urban Company

Founded In: 2014
Founders: Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Raghav Chandra and Varun Khaitan
Based In: Gurugram
Key Investors: Accel, Elevation Capital, Prosus Ventures, Tiger Global
What it Does: Urban Company is an app-based on-demand platform for at-home services. The company started off in Delhi with just a handful of service professionals but has now expanded to have a global footprint across categories like beauty and wellness, and home repairs and maintenance. It has more than 35,000 service partners on its platform.