ET Startup Awards 2026 | Midas Touch: Sauce VC’s winning recipe earns Manu Chandra the prize

One of the most high-profile categories at The ET Startup Awards 2026 – the Midas Touch award for best investor – witnessed closely contested deliberations, with jurors holding strong and divergent views on the contenders. After an extended discussion, the jury, led by Wipro executive chairman Rishad Premji, picked Sauce VC founder and managing partner Manu Chandra, recognising his record of backing companies early and delivering significant exits.

A key factor in Chandra’s selection was his exit track record. Sauce’s sale of portfolio company Innovist to L’Oréal generated an estimated Rs 500-550 crore in proceeds, making it the biggest consumer-sector deal of the year. The transaction delivered an estimated 8-10-fold return on investment for Sauce and underscored Chandra’s strategy of writing relatively small initial cheques and increasing exposure to companies that emerge as winners.


Chandra’s fellow nominees included Myntra cofounder Mukesh Bansal, recognised for his investments in Groww and Skyroot; Avra Capital managing partner Anu Hariharan, who previously led Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund; and former Peak XV managing director Shailesh Lakhani, who has since launched his own fund, Ambition Capital. Bansal, who served on this year’s jury, recused himself from deliberations and voting in the Midas Touch category.

Also Read: ET Startup Awards 2026: Groww adjudged No. 1; Sauce VC’s Manu Chandra named Midas Touch winner

Bansal's early cheques for Groww and Skyroot as well his conviction on deeptech bets stood out for the jury. Skyroot, which was nominated in the Startup of the Year category, became a unicorn in May this year after raising $60 million. One of the jury members commended Bansal's ability to score outsized investment outcomes without having the platform of a VC firm.

During the deliberations, one juror drew a parallel with the 2024 winner of the Midas Touch award, Elevation Capital co-managing partner Mukul Arora. The jury had then recognised Arora for the success of deals he had sourced and backed early, which helped shape Elevation Capital into the platform it is today. Chandra, the juror argued, had followed a similar path by building Sauce VC around his own investment thesis.

Another jury member described Chandra as a self-starter whose reputation had grown among founders in the consumer brands ecosystem. Entrepreneurs in that space seeking their first institutional cheques, the juror noted, increasingly look to Chandra and Sauce.

A former investor at British private equity firm 3i Group, Chandra founded Sauce VC in 2019 with a Rs 60-crore fund, committing around Rs 10 crore of his own savings to the venture. His thesis was centred on India’s emerging consumer brands and the opportunity to back them before they became mainstream. Innovist was one of Sauce’s early investments. The firm has since built a portfolio that includes Mokobara, The Whole Truth, Supertails and XYXX, while continuing to reserve larger follow-on cheques for companies that show strong traction.

“This Midas Touch honour comes at a time when the most exciting consumption story in the world is playing out. A big thank you to the founders who took a bet to partner with a small homegrown fund. The Sauce team and I are grateful to the jury and ET for this recognition. It encourages us to continue helping build the next generation of brands that offer better choices to the discerning Indian consumer,” Chandra said, remarking on winning the prize.

Sauce’s investment strategy has been built around identifying breakout companies at an early stage and backing them more aggressively as they scale. The approach reflects a larger transformation underway in Indian consumption, with younger consumers discovering brands through Instagram, ecommerce, influencers and, increasingly, quick commerce.

This shift has created room for challenger brands across beauty, personal care, food, apparel, wellness and lifestyle. Many have competed with established players through sharper positioning, distinctive packaging, faster product development and digital-first distribution, creating a fertile market for early-stage investors willing to take concentrated bets.

Previous winners include former Peak XV MD Ashish Agrawal, recognised for his high-conviction investment in Groww; Nexus Venture Partners’ Jishnu Bhattacharjee; Accel’s Shekhar Kirani; InfoEdge’s Sanjeev Bikhchandani; and Lightspeed’s Bejul Somaia.

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Other contenders

Shailesh Lakhani

Lakhani spent over 18 years at Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India) before founding his own investment firm, Ambition Capital. He has made early bets in multiple companies, three of which have already gone public and a fourth has filed its IPO papers.

Anu Hariharan

Having led Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund before cofounding Avra Capital, Hariharan has focussed on backing high-growth technology companies and supporting founders through successive stages of growth. Groww and Meesho have gone public.

Mukesh Bansal

Bansal founded fashion etailer Myntra and fitness startup Curefit before launching the venture studio Meraki Labs. He has approached investing with an operator’s lens, backing founders early and staying invested. His portfolio includes Groww, Skyroot Aerospace, Cred, and FirstClub, with sizeable gains recorded across fintech and deeptech.