ET Startup Awards 2026 to crown A-List of entrepreneurs

A power-packed jury chaired by Rishad Premji, executive chairman of Wipro, will meet in Bengaluru on August 25 to select the winners of the 12th edition of The Economic Times Startup Awards (ETSA), the country’s most prestigious recognition for entrepreneurial excellence.

Premji will helm a group of accomplished founders, business leaders and veteran entrepreneurs, who have built and scaled some of India’s best-known new economy companies — in ecommerce, fintech and software products — weathered multiple cycles and successfully exited their businesses.

Among them is Sachin Bansal, cofounder of Flipkart and now Navi; Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and chief executive of Paytm; Mukesh Bansal, cofounder of Myntra, Curefit and Nurix; Mithun Sacheti, cofounder of CaratLane; and Paras Chopra, founder of Wingify and Lossfunk.


All of them belong to a peerless group that has built multiple successful ventures, ploughing capital into newer generations of startups to keep the innovation engine revving.

They will be joined by Abhiraj Singh Bhal, cofounder and CEO of Urban Company; Adwaita Nayar, cofounder of Nykaa; Aryaman Vikram Birla, director of Aditya Birla Group; Irina Ghose, managing director at Anthropic India; Ajit Mohan, chief business officer of Snap Inc, and Satyan Gajwani, chairman of Times Internet.

The jury will deliberate on winners in eight categories, including Startup of the Year, Midas Touch for best investor, Woman Ahead, Top Innovator, Social Enterprise, Bootstrap Champ, Comeback Kid and Best on Campus.

Each category has, over the years, spotlighted some of the country’s most transformative entrepreneurs, several of whom have gone on to build listed enterprises.

The year’s edition of ETSA comes at a defining moment for the Indian startup economy, which is navigating a slower pace of development in artificial intelligence (AI), even as the US and China press home the first-movers’ advantage. Jury members will, therefore, weigh factors such as innovation and leadership in frontier technology while deciding this year’s winners.

The presence of founders and business leaders who have themselves been through raising, scaling, exiting and rebuilding, is intended to bring that hard-won judgement to bear on the current crop.

Since its inception in 2015, the ET Startup Awards has grown to become the benchmark for entrepreneurial achievement in India. It mirrors the paper’s in-depth coverage of the startup and technology ecosystem.

Past winners of the coveted Startup of the Year honour, such as Zomato, Lenskart, Delhivery, and Swiggy, have moved on to become publicly listed companies. Other winners like Ather Energy (Best on Campus in 2016), Capillary Technologies (Comeback Kid in 2025) and Ixigo (Comeback Kid in 2021) have also listed on the bourses, signalling a robust startup ecosystem.

ET reached out to more than 200 of the country’s top entrepreneurs, investors, industry groups and other stakeholders to compile a list of India’s brightest entrepreneurial talent. The paper’s editorial team then distilled this to arrive at the final shortlist.

Tracxn is knowledge partner for ETSA.