ET Startup Awards 2022: Nominees for Startup of the Year

The ET Startup of the Year will be characterised by breakthrough innovation, top-class execution and fast-paced growth. The quality of the founding and management team was an important component in decision making.

Company Name: Razorpay

Founded In: 2014


Founders: Harshil Mathur, Shashank Kumar

Based In: Bengaluru

Key Investors: Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital India, Y Combinator, GIC, Matrix Partners India, Ribbit Capital

What it does: Razorpay provides payment gateway services to help businesses accept, process and disburse payments. It has also started a neo-banking vertical offering payroll management, lending, recurring payments and other services to merchants.

Company Name: Lenskart

Founded In: 2010

Founders: Peyush Bansal, Neha Bansal, Ramneek Khurana, Amit Chaudhary

Based In: New Delhi

Key Investors: SoftBank, Premji Invest, KKR, Alpha Wave, Temasek

What it Does: Lenskart is an omni-channel eyewear retailer operating in India and Southeast Asia. It has over 1,000 stores in India and is double the size of nearest competitor Titan Eye. The company has set up its own ecommcerce venture Neso, which aims to invest in eyewear brands and sell them globally.

Company Name: OfBusiness

Founded In: 2015

Founders: Asish Mohapatra, Ruchi Kalra, Bhuvan Gupta, Vasant Sridhar, Nitin Jain

Based In: Gurugram

Key Investors: SoftBank Vision Fund, Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners

What it Does: OfBusiness is a B2B ecommerce platform for raw material procurement. It also works with banks and NBFCs to offer credit lines to SMEs through its fintech business Oxyzo, which was recently spun off as a separate firm and is valued at $1 billion after its maiden round of funding.

Company Name: Dream Sports

Founded In: 2008

Founders: Harsh Jain, Bhavit Sheth

Based In: Mumbai

Key Investors: TPG, Tiger Global Management, Tencent, Multiples Equity

What it Does: Dream Sports is known for offering fantasy gaming across multiple sports sectors. Amid growing regulatory challenges, it has been diversifying beyond its core offering of fantasy gaming. The group now consists of inhouse sports content and commerce platform FanCode; payment solutions arm Dream Pay; and sports experiential company DreamSetGo.

Company Name: Browserstack

Founded In: 2011

Founders: Ritesh Arora, Nakul Aggarwal

Based In: Mumbai and San Francisco

Key Investors: Accel, Bond Capital, Insight Partners

What it Does: Browserstack offers a subscription-based web and mobile app testing platform. Started in 2011, it was bootstrapped until 2018, when it raised venture funding. Last year, it got $200 million in funding and was valued at $4 billion. It aims to become the largest testing platform globally with 50% market share.